JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 92 ____________________________________________________________________ and Luphahla. This was creating the impression among MDC members that they could commit such crimes and get away with them. The result was that the violence by MDC members was increasing day by day and it had now reached “alarming proportions”. Conclusion This series of cases illustrates once again the malign effect of politics intruding into the administration of justice. The deaths of Nkala and Luphahla were almost certainly politically inspired, but the immediate reaction of the government was that the two had been killed by members of the opposition MDC, and the government-controlled news media trumpeted this view to the exclusion of all else. Police investigations seem to have been directed solely at proving the government’s allegations correct, without regard to any other line of enquiry. The police seem to have ignored suggestions made in the independent press, that Cain Nkala may have been killed by members of his own war veterans’ organisation.145 If, after nine months, the only evidence the police have managed to get are a couple of confessions whose admissibility will probably be challenged, then their investigations have certainly not been very fruitful. If, as seems likely, the suspects who have been indicted are acquitted for lack of credible evidence, then the true murderers of Nkala and Luphahla will have escaped justice. Topic 5 5. THE CHINHOYI FARMERS CASE Introduction On 6 August 2001 twenty-one whites, mainly commercial farmers, were arrested in the Chinhoyi area and charged with public violence. The incident that gave rise to charges is described succinctly and, as it turned out, accurately by a writer 146: “The worst outbreak of violence occurred in August 2001 in the Chinhoyi farming district, sixty miles north-west of Harare. It started after a group of