Own Correspondent|JUSTICE and Parliamentary Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi has hinted that the three MDC Alliance abductees are remaining in hospital to avoid being arrested.

Ziyambi accused the three of being “very happy to be at the hospital” where they are recuperating at a private hospital in Harare after being tortured by suspected State security agents.

Speaking during the question and answer session in the Senate on Thursday, Ziyambi said the trio was refusing to cooperate with detectives investigating them for violating lockdown rules and leading an anti-government demonstration before their abduction last Wednesday.

The three are Harare West MP Joanah Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova.

“It is a fact that the said individuals broke the law in that we have lockdown regulations that prohibit demonstrations,” Ziyambi said.

“So these individuals are wanted by the police so that they can be interviewed on why they broke the law.

“The same individuals are not co-operating with the police, but seem to be very happy to be at the hospital.”

He added: “As far as the allegations of torture are concerned, if they have anything against the police or against the alleged torture, they are free to report it and the police will look at the allegations.

“Why did they decide to break the law? And one of them is a legislator.”

Mamombe, Chimbiri and Marova were abducted last Wednesday after staging a flash demonstration in Warren Park. They went missing for two days and later found dumped at Muchapondwa business centre in Bindura South, heavily battered.

The three are in hospital, and only one has been interviewed by the police while others are still to be questioned after their doctors, who included government health practitioners, agreed that they were not in a stable condition to be interviewed.

“Police still want to interrogate them over violating the lockdown rules, and if they have a complaint on allegations of abductions, then government can look into that,” Ziyambi responded to a question from Douglas Mwonzora on governments reaction to the abductions.

“Indeed, we acknowledge that an allegation of abduction was made, but it is not something substantive because what is known is that the said individuals broke COVID-19 lockdown rules.

“They decided to undertake a demonstration in Warren Park that had the potential of putting the public at risk.”

The Justice minister also alleged that the three purported to have parked Mamombe’s vehicle at a police station.

“What has not been ascertained is whether they were tortured or not. Government has no business to abduct people,”he said.

“What we have seen is that some people became irrelevant when government was busy dealing with COVID-19 and they started to demonstrate to get relevance.”