Biti faces a treason charge that potentially carries a death sentence. Deputy Youth Minister and MP for Nkulumane Thamsanqa Mahlangu faces a charge of stealing a mobile phone and is on bail awaiting trial. Senator Roy Bennett is charged with illegal possession of “arms of war” and is on bail awaiting trial. Blessing Chebundo, Kwekwe Central MP, faces a charge of rape and is on bail awaiting trial. Trevor Saruwaka, Mutasa South MP, faces a public violence charge and is on bail awaiting judgment.22 Five MPs face charges of abusing subsidized farming inputs. They are currently on bail awaiting judgment and are: Hamandishe Maramwidze, MP for Gutu North; Heya Shoko, MP for Bikita West; Edmore Marima, MP for Bikita East; Tachiona Mharadza, MP for Masvingo West; and Evelyn Masaiti, MP for Dzivarasekwa, Harare.23 These prosecutions are not only politically motivated; they are also often presided over by politicized and partisan officials loyal to ZANU-PF, making a fair and impartial hearing near impossible. Not a single ZANU-PF legislator has been arrested or prosecuted for criminal offenses since the GPA was signed, although a number are directly implicated in last year’s political violence and other serious abuses, which resulted in the killing of over 163 MDC supporters between March and June 2008.24 Similarly, there has been no meaningful action to charge those responsible for brutalizing thousands more MDC supporters over that period and since. And, despite overwhelming evidence, no member of the police or armed forces has been charged with abuses in the Marange diamond fields, despite evidence of serious human rights violations there, which Human Rights Watch has documented in detail.25 Politically motivated prosecutions of MDC legislators and the failure to prosecute MPs from ZANU-PF implicated in violence or other serious crimes demonstrate that the Office of the Attorney General and sections of the police under ZANU-PF control continue to abuse the judicial system for political ends. 22 “Biti in Court, Charged with Treason,” Zimbabwe Times, July 14, 2008. 23 Bill Watch Special, Veritas, July 31, 2009, emailed to Human Rights Watch. 24 Human Rights Watch, “They Beat Me Like a Dog.” 25 Human Rights Watch, Diamonds in the Rough: Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe, ISBN: 156432-505-9, June 2009, http://www.hrw.org/node/83960. False Dawn 8