Zimbabwe Cancels Invitation of UN Torture Expert

Zimbabwe has called off the invitation of Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Human Right Council's special rapporteur on torture and other inhuman treatments who was scheduled to in the country.

U.N. Human Rights investigator Nowak was informed of the termination while at the airport where he had been detained overnight by security officials upon his arrival.

"I got the clear message from the prime minister that it is his understanding that the mission is going on," Nowak was quoted saying on BBC news upon receiving two conflicting messages from the government.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa had earlier invited Mr. Nowak to meet officials and human rights activists in the country and compile a report for the Security Council on his fact-finding mission but his operation was called off ahead of the SADC meeting.

The UN said that it welcomes all efforts to solve the crisis but the SADC meeting was not a valid reason to cancel his visit that was informed to him while on course.

Earlier on Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party declared their pull out from the unity government over the unrelenting intimidations by President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.

The state-run newspaper The Herald branded Nowak as trying to ‘gate-crush into the country’. "Government had already communicated to him that he would have to visit on a later date," said the Herald.

Zimbabwe was swayed into post election crisis following a disputed presidential election in March 2008 that saw the southern Africa state waft into worse humanitarian crisis and isolation from the international community. [ER].