Mugabe death squad thugs kidnapped and tortured me, says trade union leader

Zimbabwe's stolen election » After 22 years in power the President today begins another term by tightening the screws of repression

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Ephraim Tapa is president of Zimbabwe's civil service union and a member of the general council of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). In most countries he would be a respected civic leader. Instead he is the face of Robert Mugabe's stolen election.

Abducted with his pregnant wife, Faith, by President Mugabe's supporters, Mr Tapa says he is "very, very lucky to be alive". After being held hostage for nearly a month, during which he was regularly beaten and tortured, he was rescued by the police on the final day of voting in the presidential election, just as his captors were preparing to kill him.

Now the trade unionist is seeking an escape route to Britain – the police have warned the couple to leave Zimbabwe before they are hunted down and killed by their abductors, who they are able to identify. Zanu-PF militia have already visited Mr Tapa's workplace and his father's house. He spoke to The Independent on Sunday at one of the hiding places he is being forced to use.

"It was terrifying, and horrible to feel so helpless," he said of his ordeal. "Our lives meant nothing to our captors: we could have been killed at any time. It feels sickening to have had a free Zimbabwe under black rule, and now to be deprived of all those rights that we fought so hard to win."

It is clear that Mr Mugabe, who is being inaugurated today for yet another term after 22 years in power, has rejected any notion of reconciliation and opted for greater repression. Some 200 Zanu-PF youths invaded companies in Bulawayo on Friday, no doubt acting on government plans to speed up "indigenisation" of the economy. In some areas, youths and "war veterans" are stepping up invasions of 4,000 white-owned farms.

Mr Mugabe has signed a draconian media bill that bans foreign correspondents and muzzles the local press, while new public order and security laws allow the authorities to break up just about any meeting they want to – such as the one Mr Tapa's ZCTU held to debate a general strike in protest at an election that it regards as massively rigged and illegitimate. The opposition, led by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), fears a violent crackdown, and the trade unionist knows what to expect.

The ordeal of Mr Tapa, 40, and his 25-year-old wife, who is five months pregnant and believes it "miraculous" that she has not lost her first child, began on Saturday 16 February. They set off from Harare for the primary school at which Faith taught in Mashonaland East, just under 100 miles away. As they left a roadside canteen near the school they saw a group of some 15 youths surrounding the car, some wearing Zanu-PF T-shirts and scarves.

"They ordered us to produce Zanu-PF cards, which we did," said Mr Tapa. "But they'd seen stickers in our car saying 'Vote No to Violence', and pamphlets urging people to vote in the election, and demanded to know why we were in possession of such materials.

"They said we were under arrest, and forced us to drive with them to Faith's school, where they had set up a base in one of the classrooms."

After "war veterans" from the nearby town of Mutoko arrived, led by a Zanu-PF official called John Murwisi, they began to beat Ephraim. "He begged them to hit him instead of me, as I was pregnant," said Faith. The assault continued late into the night, until he lost consciousness. "At one point I was nearly strangled to death with a Zanu-PF scarf," he said. "Then, I managed to escape, and had run a few steps when I heard an order to shoot me. I rushed back into the thick of my assailants.

"All the time I was screaming out that I was being killed by war veterans, by Zanu-PF. I think they decided not to murder me there and then because we began to hear rustling sounds in the bushes. It seemed local people had gathered to see what was happening.

"We were bundled into a truck and driven through a forest. We stopped at least five times and there were heated debates, some of our captors saying they should kill us and dump our bodies among the trees, but others arguing that I had made too much noise at the school."

After more beatings and interrogation at another school taken over by the militants, the couple ended up at a bigger base in Mushimbo, near the Mozambique border. There, for three weeks, they were guarded every minute and regularly questioned, though the beatings slowed. Sometimes they were blindfolded, but Ephraim recognised some of the voices of their interrogators – they were police agents and Zanu-PF leaders.

"They wanted the A to Z of the MDC, everything about everybody and about the party's strategies." Ephraim's wounds slowly healed. "For the first week my face was so swollen I couldn't see a thing. One day I had the beginnings of a stroke. By then they thought we were indoctrinated into supporting Zanu-PF, so they decided to keep me alive. They rushed to a local mission for medicine, but it was a close call.

"We had got to know our captors well, and a few did not support what Zanu-PF was doing: they were just too scared to leave. They smuggled letters out for me. One guy risked his life to drive to Harare and give a letter to my union."

Friends and family, who had been mourning a couple they thought murdered, began frantic efforts to get a court order compelling police to raid the camp. Two of Mr Tapa's brothers, not prepared to wait for the court, rushed off to search for them. They were captured in the Mushimbo area, and also beaten and imprisoned by Zanu-PF.

"On the first day of the election, 9 March, I exploded," said Mr Tapa. "I was furious about not being able to vote. My captors got very angry. They said that clearly we were 'not one with them', as they had thought, and therefore we must die. But they said it would be hard for them to do the job, because they had got used to us, so we would be moved to another base for killing.

"We were to be transferred on Monday morning. We prayed all night, and the police arrived just before we were to leave. We drove with them to rescue my brothers. On the way we saw fresh graves – we could so easily have joined those poor souls."