JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 26 ____________________________________________________________________ Mnangagwa is reported as having told the mission that what happened to The Standard journalists Chavunduka and Choto in 1999 would happen again. He said: “What happened to them when they falsely wrote that the army was planning a coup would happen to them again if they repeat that because nobody is above the law.”35 (The law under which they had been prosecuted was in fact declared to be unconstitutional by the High Court.) The deaths of Chiminya and Mabika On 15 April 2000 a ZANU (PF) vehicle stopped a convoy of MDC vehicles outside Murambinda Growth point in Buhera. The persons in the MDC vehicles were involved in campaigning for Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC president, in the run-up to the June 2000 parliamentary election. Two men armed with AK47 rifles and others bearing iron bars emerged from the ZANU (PF) car. It is alleged that Joseph Mwale, a Central Intelligence Organisation operative, and one Kainos Tom “Kitsiyatota” Zimunya started to attack an MDC truck with iron bars. The MDC youths at the back of the truck fled at the sight of the guns. Mr Tichaona Chiminya and Ms Talent Mabika were trapped in this vehicle. It is alleged that Mwale ordered petrol bombs to be fetched and these were then thrown into the car. Although both later managed to escape from the burning vehicle, Mr Chiminya had been badly burned and died a few metres away. Ms Mabika died later in Murambinda Hospital. A police vehicle was said to be parked less than 100 metres away from the scene, but the police acted only later. The police, so it is alleged, did not intervene and made no effort to stop the ZANU (PF) vehicle or to follow it when it left the scene. Neither Mwale nor Zimunya has been arrested, despite the fact that a High Court judge recommended that the Attorney-General’s office should pursue the matter after evidence was led in a election petition about the killings.36 The judge, Mr Justice Devittie, commented that the killing of Mr Chiminya and Ms Mabika was “a wicked act.” In July 2001 Mr Andrew Chigovera, the Attorney-General, ordered the police to investigate the murders. In July 2002 a local newspaper carried this report: