HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa has pardoned former High Court judge Benjamin Paradza who was convicted on corruption charges but fled the country before sentencing in 2006.

Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi announced the full pardon in a Government Gazette published on May 23.

The notice said: “It is hereby notified that His Excellency the President has in terms of section 112(1)(a) and (b) of the constitution, made an order granting pardon for Mr Benjamin Paradza in respect of his conviction (Case Number CRB 152/2004) on two counts of corruption on the 9th January, 2006, by the High Court of Zimbabwe sitting at Harare.”

Paradza, who was admitted as a lawyer by the New Zealand Bar in 2011, is reportedly suffering from a terminal illness and his family has lobbied the government to allow him to return home.

A source familiar with the discussions said: “He is ill and elderly and a war veteran. He needs to be taken care of by his family here.

“If he returns home with that conviction hanging over his head it means he has to be immediately arrested, and it would be actually expensive to incarcerate him because of his medical needs.”

Paradza was tried after he approached three judges – Justice Maphios Cheda, Justice George Chiweshe and Justice Lawrence Kamocha trying to get them to release the passport of his business associate Russell Wayne Labuschagne, who was facing murder allegations.
It was Justice Cheda who caused his arrest after making a secret recording of Paradza stating that Labuschagne, who was eventually jailed 15 years by Kamocha over the death of man who allegedly trespassed into his fish farm in Kariba, needed to attend a convention for professional hunters in the United States.

Paradza told Cheda that he and his partners in Circle G, which was part of the Midland Black Rhino Conservancy in Kwekwe, stood to make US$60,000 if Labuschagne travelled to the United States and clinched deals with hunters.
Cheda also told the trial that he was approached by a Mr Anand who offered him a bribe.

Paradza pleaded his innocence, insisting that he only asked the judges to take a look at the file and exercise their discretion if Labuschagne’s application for a variation of his bail terms, namely the release of his passport held by the Clerk of Court, came before them.

He instead claimed the judges had been sent to trap him because he had passed judgments which were unfavourable to the government.

The pardon means Paradza will never be sentenced.