* Mujuru family says disagrees with court findings
* Family wants to seek independent autopsy
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE, March 30 (Reuters) – The family of a former
Zimbabwean army general who was seen as a key player in the race
to succeed President Robert Mugabe before dying in a fire last
August suspects he was murdered and will seek to exhume his
body, state-owned media said on Friday.
On Thursday, a court ruled out foul play in the death in a
farmhouse blaze of Solomon Mujuru, popularly known by his
guerrilla name Rex Nhongo.
Mujuru was married to Vice-President Joice Mujuru and headed
a ruling party faction that wanted her to succeed Mugabe as
party and state president. Media reported that he was pressing
Mugabe to retire and that his faction had courted Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party.
His death led to media speculation at the time that he had
been killed in a political power play to help Mugabe, who has
ruled the destitute state for more than 30 years, and his
supporters in his ruling ZANU-PF.
“There is suspicion in the minds of my clients and relatives
that somebody killed the general and ferried his body and put it
in the house,” Mujuru’s family lawyer Thakor Kewada told the
state-owned Herald newspaper.
Kewada said he would write to the home affairs ministers to
seek exhumation of Mujuru’s body on behalf of the family.
Continued…
