HARARE – The MDC Alliance says it has found no “conclusive evidence” that one of its leaders was an informer for the Central Intelligence Organisation whose agents abducted and tortured university student Tawanda Muchehiwa in July.
Tendai Masotsha, the chairperson of the MDC women’s wing in Bulawayo province faced questions after the 22-year-old Muchehiwa – a nephew of ZimLive editor Mduduzi Mathuthu – was seized from a parked car as they sat together on July 30, the eve of planned anti-government protests.
Masotsha and two other nephews of the journalist, who were inside a hardware shop at the time of the raid, were taken to the main police station but she was released after several hours of questioning. One of Mathuthu’s nephews, Advent Mathuthu, was charged with incitement of violence over Masotsha’s ’31 July Strategy’ protest flyers found in the BMW he was driving, but prosecutors surprisingly dropped the charges.
Muchehiwa was driven out of town and tortured for three days and was only released after a court gave police 72 hours to produce him, with a judge accepting that police knew who was holding him. Doctors said Muchehiwa’s kidneys were failing when he was taken to hospital.
Jameson Timba, a senior MDC Alliance official who was part of a committee probing Masotsha, said they were satisfied “on the balance of probabilities” that she had not collaborated with the state agents.
“After considering the evidence before it, the committee concludes that there is no conclusive evidence to link Tendai Masotsha to the abduction of Tawanda Muchehiwa. There is no smoking gun,” Timba told a news conference in Harare on Monday.
Timba said they “examined all documents relevant to the case including media reports in print, audio and video.”
“In addition, the committee engaged and interviewed all stakeholders including the family and legal representatives of Tawanda Muchehiwa, Tendai Masotsha and other members of the party,” he added.
Neither Muchehiwa nor his cousins Advent Mathuthu and Amandlenkosi Mathuthu who spent some time with Masotsha at the police station were interviewed, ZimLive reported Monday.
Masotsha told the committee that police officers at Bulawayo Central Police Station purported to release her just after 8PM, but she was abducted by state security agents shortly after stepping out of the station. She claimed she was driven into the bush and tortured until about 1AM when her abductors dumped her near her home.
Timba said he did not know if Masotsha filed a police report about the incident.
Kukurigo understands Masotsha had previously told party officials that she did not report her alleged abduction and torture to the police or the party because she was in shock.
Despite her being cleared of conspiring with state agents, Masotsha came under renewed scrutiny immediately after as it emerged Monday that she had also circulated her ’31 July Strategy’ flyer in party WhatsApp groups, appearing to incite the public to attack the homes of Zanu PF officials and police officers.
Party insiders said there are fears Masotsha was working to entrap opposition activists in an intelligence operation designed to create a pretext for clamping down on the July 31 protests, but the party was hesitant to admit to such high-level infiltration.
“Just look how uncomfortable Mahere was when Timba was saying those things; everyone knows this is a mistake, but the leaders insisted she be cleared,” a party official speaking on condition of anonymity said.