US teacher at Methodist university deported

A US citizen teaching at the United Methodist Church's Africa University in the Zimbabwean city of Mutare has been deported after he was caught filming police destroying shacks inhabited by the urban poor in an operation that has left 200 000 people homeless. Howard Smith Gilman, aged 68, an unpaid geography teacher, was held in prison for 10 days after his arrest. But a court on 6 June failed to convict him on charges under Zimbabwe's media laws that carry a two-year jail term for practising journalism without permission from the government.

Gilman's lawyer Innocent Gonese, who is also the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) chief whip in Zimbabwe's parliament, said his client had been fined a total of 300 000 Zimbabwe dollars (US$33) on alternative charges of breaking the country's censorship and immigration laws, and was deported to the United States.