Mugabe threatens to seize assets of British charities

President Robert Mugabe's government has threatened to seize British assets, including charity donations, in retaliation against a decision to freeze the ruling party Zanu- PF's assets in Britain.

The Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane told Parliament this week that Britain had frozen £76,000 in assets belonging to Mr Mugabe's party under sanctions imposed by the European Union against the ageing Zimbabwe leader and his senior aides.

Mr Mugabe's chief spokes-man, the Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, denied Zanu- PF had assets in Britain but said his government was ready to freeze British assets in Zimbabwe in response to Britain's "phantom assets and phantom stories" against Zimbabwe.

"Somebody should remind them there are real British assets in Zimbabwe, including British donations to non-governmental organisations and other groups that are bent on causing havoc for the ordinary people," Mr Moyo told the state-owned Herald newspaper. "They should not use phantom assets to dare us to take real action here."

British governments, companies and welfare organisations have invested in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. But even if Mr Mugabe does not freeze assets, a legal expert warned that such "reckless" statements from the Zimbabwe leader and his hench- men would continue harming the southern African nation where half of its 13 million people face famine.

"Threats to seize companies ... to seize British assets and related rhetoric would hardly do anything to promote investment in Zimbabwe," Professor Lovemore Madhuku, of the law faculty at Zimbawe University, said.

Already Mr Mugabe has either seized or announced plans to confiscate more than 4,000 productive farms, mostly owned by whites of British descent. The Commercial Farmers' Union this week said only 13 white-owned farms would be left in Zimbabwe after Mr Mugabe completes his land seizure programme in August. British organisations including Oxfam are among many helping Mr Mugabe's government feed millions of Zimbabweans beset by critical food shortages.

In a separate development, a High Court judge ordered resumption of the trial of Guardian journalist Andrew Meldrum, 50, who is accused of publishing false news, a charge carrying a two-year jail term.

Mr Meldrum, a US national with permanent residence, in Zimbabwe, is the first journalist to be tried under a tough new media law enacted by Mr Mugabe after his controversial re-election in March. Mr Meldrum had gone to the High Court seeking an order to have his trial in a lower court dropped for lack of evidence. He is accused of publishing a false story about a woman beheaded by Mr Mugabe's supporters in front of her two young children.

But the story, first published by the independent newspaper The Daily News, was false. The man claiming to be the woman's husband admitted he had fabricated the incident and the newspaper apologised to Zanu-PF. Mr Meldrum's lawyers said the charges should be dismissed because his story was not published in the country and police could have tampered with the internet version they downloaded. Thirteen journalists have been charged with publishing false information, in most cases connected with this story.

The Zimbabwe government has also set 31 October as the "absolute deadline" for media organisations and journalists to obtain government licences costing $10,000 (£6,400) to continue operating.