Zimbabwe MP describes eight-hour police torture

Job Sikhala was called the "roaring lion" because of his powerful oratory. He helped establish the Movement for Democratic Change as the most serious challenge to President Robert Mugabe since Zimbabwe gained its independence from Britain in 1980.

At political rallies, he roared the MDC's slogans and the crowd would roar back. He was the warm-up act for the party's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. His name on the posters would guarantee a full house at MDC rallies.

But Mr Sikhala, 30, an MP and senior member of the party's executive committee, is now a shadow of his former self. After being tortured by Mr Mugabe's police, he says his life will never be the same again.

Speaking about his ordeal for the first time yesterday in the Johannesburg clinic where he is now getting specialist treatment, Mr Sikhala warned that while the world focuses on Iraq, President Mugabe is intensifying his reign of terror. An unprecedented crackdown has been launched against the opposition, with more than 500 people jailed since Sunday.

Mr Sikhala described how police raided his home in the Harare suburb of St Mary's two months ago and assaulted everyone present, including his wife who had just given birth. They took him to Harare Central Police Station and accused him of plotting to overthrow President Mugabe. The allegations were later dropped in court.

After being kept overnight in a police cell, he was taken to an unknown location where he was subjected to eight uninterrupted hours of torture. He says he was thrown into a dirty room with blood splattered all over the walls. He too would lose much of his blood there, he was told.

Two men took turns to beat the soles of his feet with wooden planks. "They then applied electric shocks to my genitals and tongue," Mr Sikhala said yesterday. "The more I cried, the more they inflicted the pain, saying I had not cried enough. They would at times apply the electric shocks to my genitals, tongue, toes and fingers at the same time."

His torturers urinated on him as he lay on the floor. "At that moment I urinated myself also," he said. They then forced him to drink all the urine to dry the floor, he said. He was also forced to drink what he thinks was a poison.

He heard his torturers talking about drowning him in a reservoir. They drove him back to Harare Central Police Station, where he was charged with plotting against the state. As soon as he was released, supporters took him away for hospital treatment.

Now he suffers from persistent headaches, nightmares and hallucinations and severe forgetfulness.

Taurayi Magaya, 33, a district chairman of the MDC, was arrested on the same night as Mr Sikhala and was subjected to the same torture for a similar eight-hour period.

"I now feel like a mad man," he said. "At night I run from my home under the influence of nightmares."

He says he suffers from severe stomach pains, after drinking "strange" liquids under torture, as well as "permanent headaches".

The third torture victim at the clinic would not be interviewed because he does not want to remember his trauma. But all three consider themselves lucky – because of their political status they could get treatment. But ordinary party members in remote rural areas had no such help, they warned.