Dzamara's abductors 'named'

Human rights defenders and social movements have released names of five people who are suspected to have abducted activist Itai Dzamara in March last year.

Prominent human rights lawyer Kennedy Masiye in his Facebook post released the names of the people who allegedly seized the former journalist at a barbershop in Harare.

He also added the registration number of the vehicle used by the abductors.

The names are also being circulated on other social media platforms, including WhatsApp and micro blogging site Twitter by groups such as Pastor Evan Mawarire's #ThisFlag movement.

The High Court last year issued an order compelling police to act on the matter, but there has been no progress in terms of investigations.

Recently, Dzamara's brother Patson petitioned Zimbabwe Republic Police's Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri, demanding the law enforcers to take Itai's case seriously and investigate it with the urgency it deserved.

Patson yesterday said they had received many leads on his missing brother.

"The long and short of it is this: I received a text message from a certain number last year in August. The message contained details of what the sender said is what happened to Itai when and after he was abducted," he said.
"The details contained those names. We escalated the matter to the police, CID department and they helped us through the investigations.

"The bottom line is that we could not make headway due to the fact that every single lead led to a dead end."
Dzamara added: "It could have been a decoy but we are still working on it and I can't reveal more details seeing that it's still a matter we are dealing with."

At one point Patson released grainy pictures of an image he claimed to have obtained from the secret services showing a person said to be Itai in captivity sitting on the floor with hands tied behind his back, while his head was draped in a bandage-like white cloth.

He claimed the military intelligence was responsible for his brother's disappearance.