Mugabe puts pressure on judges

President Robert Mugabe will "question the qualifications" of any Zimbabwean judge who agrees to hear a legal case against him brought by a former top ally, press reports said on Saturday.

"We would want to see which magistrate would sit to hear that case. Then we will question their educational qualifications," Mugabe was quoted as saying in Shona by the official Herald newspaper.

He was referring to a case lodged against him this week by his former presidential affairs minister Didymus Mutasa.

Another former ally, Rugare Gumbo, has joined Mutasa in the court challenge.

The pair are suing Mugabe, aged 91, and the ruling party over decisions made at a ZANU-PF congress in December, which led to the sacking of vice president Joice Mujuru.

Gumbo and Mutasa have both been expelled from ZANU-PF.

Speaking at the opening of a chrome smelting plant in central Zimbabwe, Mugabe suggested Mutasa was "wasting time" and said ZANU-PF's constitution was not the same as Zimbabwe's constitution.

Gumbo, a former ZANU-PF spokesperson, said earlier this week that he knew he was "inviting a war" by suing Mugabe.

Zimbabwe's High Court last July delivered a ruling on a case involving an internal wrangle within the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.