Philip Conjwayo, Mike Smith and Kevin Woods have been incarcerated in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Zimbabwe since 1988, following convictions based on evidence that included confessions made under extreme duress. For this reason alone, their convictions would be deemed unsafe by every judicial system in the civilised world.

During their period of imprisonment, they have suffered the most barbaric and inhuman treatment, which, even if they were guilty as charged, is unwarranted.

In the 1980’s a state of war existed between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Republic of South Africa. The ANC was a prohibited organisation and its personnel were classified as terrorists by the South African regime. This was at the height of the cold war when the Soviet Union was actively sponsoring the ANC in their struggle for strategically important South Africa.

In Zimbabwe, ANC facilities were being used to initiate and support armed raids into South Africa. Intelligence Service Agents assisted South African security forces in armed raids on ANC targets.

The de facto cease fire1 and the subsequent ANC government inauguration in May 1994 brought about the release, in the interests of reconcilliation, of all imprisoned former Intelligence Service Agents, except 4 men.

The evidence supporting this claim for "Political Prisoner" status can be found in
- Zimbabwe Supreme Court Judgement No S.C. 156/93.
- Criminal Appeal No. 301/93
- Harare Supreme Court Case No. SC 629/97
- The submission to the truth and reconciliation commission by Gen. M.A. MALAN.1




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1. Chief of the South African Defence Force (1976-1980), Minister of Defence, Government of South Africa (1980 to 1991)



THE CRIME

At approximately 2100 hours on 11 January 1988, a car bomb was detonated at an ANC facility in Bulawayo, killing the civilian driver and seriously injuring several ANC personnel.

Kevin Woods had previously identified the facility to a South African Special Forces Intelligence Agent, Kit Bawden, and subsequently a South African Defence Force aircraft delivered explosives to a cattle ranch near Fort Rixon belonging to Kit's brother, Barry Bawden.

Philip Conjwayo procured the vehicle and civilian driver, a Zambian by the name of Obed Amon Mwanza for the purpose of delivering the explosives to the ANC facility. This facility was located at 16a Jungle Road, North Trenance. The driver was told he was participating in an illegal foreign currency deal and given instructions to sound the car's horn on arrival at the facility and then to abandon the vehicle.

Mike Smith and Kit Bawden fitted the explosives to the car. Mwanza then drove it to the target and upon sounding the horn, Kit Bawden, who was accompanied by Smith, detonated the explosives, killing Mwanza instantly and injuring six ANC personnel, one of them seriously. Kevin Woods was in South Africa at the time the raid took place.

On 18th November 1988, Agents Woods, Smith and Conjwayo were sentenced to death for the car bomb attack in Bulawayo. Agents Woods, Smith and Bawden were also sentenced to 40 years imprisonment for the car bombing of another ANC facility in Harare. On 28th October 1993, on appeal, Agents Woods, Smith and Conjwayo had their death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, and Bawden's 40 years imprisonment to 25 years imprisonment.


TORTURE USED

Whilst under arrest in January 1988, their wives and other relatives were also arrested, including Agent Woods' two daughters aged 9 and 4 years. Agent Smith's pregnant wife gave birth to their daughter prematurely while being tortured with a pair of pliers by CIO (secret police) agents. The family members were detained by Zimbabwean secret police and their release was conditional on the agents' admission to involvement in the car bombing.

These men were denied proper access to their lawyers until some 17 days after their arrest. By the time they were eventually allowed to discuss their plight with their attorneys they had all made implicating statements to the secret police. When they were eventually allowed access to their lawyers, the investigation and interrogation was complete.

These men were taken before a judicial officer on the 12th February 1988, 26 days after their arrest.1

They were convicted solely on admissions made to Zimbabwe's Secret Police in "warned and cautioned" statements (alleged to have been made "freely and voluntarily") implicating involvement in "actions against the ANC" in Zimbabwe.

These men had made statements to the secret police and signed them as having been freely made because of terrifying threats against their loved ones who were being held incommunicado.2

These men were convicted, the trail judge ruling that the statements had been made freely and voluntarily.

On 18th November 1988, Agents Woods, Smith and Conjwayo were sentenced to death for the car bomb attack in Bulawayo. Agents Woods, Smith and Bawden were also sentenced to 40 years imprisonment for the car bombing of another ANC facility in Harare. On 28th October 1993, on appeal, Agents Woods, Smith and Conjwayo had their death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, and Bawden’s 40 years imprisonment to 25 years imprisonment.

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1. This is in direct conflict with their human rights under article 9(3) of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, which is an instrument to the International Bill of Human Rights.
2. This action by the secret police was in direct conflict with the fundamental right granted by Section 13(3) of the constitution of Zimbabwe, "To obtain and instruct without delay a legal representative of his choice and hold communication with him". It was also in direct conflict of principle 21 of the 1989 UN Body of Principles for the protection of all persons under any form of detention or imprisonment - which prohibits taking advantage of a situation by the authorities and subjecting the detained person to threats that cause him to incriminate himself.


CONDITIONS IN JAIL

Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison is on the outskirts of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

The men confined here are held in overcrowded cells, measuring 9m by 4m. Typically speaking there are 25 men per cell. Each day the men are confined to their squalid cells between the hours of 3:30pm and 7:00am. Four to five times a week they are also locked up for the guards lunch break, between the hours of 11:30am and 1:00pm. There are no beds and so the men have to sleep on mats spread out over the crowded cell floor. Some inmates refuse to wash, which results in blankets becoming lice infested. There is a predominance of HIV positive, practising homosexuals within this rat and lice infested prison. The cells are shared with people in the terminal stages of AIDS, Tuberculosis, Herpes and other highly infectious diseases, as well as some prisoners who are mentally ill. Many of the infected prisoners are unable to control their bodily functions, and this results in the cell floor and blankets being contaminated with body fluids; pus, phlegm, blood, urine, faeces. This is in contravention of Article 24 of the International Bill of Human Rights, which covers the state providing a safe environment.

The sanitary conditions they are forced to live under are a terrible threat to their wellbeing. Each month they receive ½ toilet roll and 1 ½ small bars of laundry soap. Every 3 months they receive 25mls of toothpaste. Detergents and disinfectants are issued in such minimal amounts that they are non-effective. A ½ cup of scouring powder (Vim) is issued each week, to clean eating utensils for 140 men.

The kitchen conditions are shocking. They do not use hot water for washing and often there are no detergents to clean cooking utensils. Stainless steel containers used for meat are left greasy. Floors, toilets and dining tables are cleaned with filthy pieces of old blankets, and there are no brooms or hosepipes. Diarrhoea and other stomach disorders are rife, whilst broken toilets remain unserviceable for years.

The food in prison is very meagre. Breakfast is at 8:30am, lunch 10:30am and supper 1:30pm. This leaves a 19-hour period every day without food. Breakfast consists of tea and bread. Lunch is a cup of boiled rice and a leafy, green vegetable boiled to a stage of no nutritional value. Supper is the same as lunch, with the exception that four times a week boiled minced beef or pork is substituted for the vegetable. Approximately 20 grams of mince is supplied and often it is rotten. It is not uncommon for prisoners to be charged with bestiality with the pigs that are bred for consumption in this prison. Sometimes the vegetable they are given is of a variety not fit for human consumption and occasionally it is contaminated with bugs and grass from the fields in which it is cultivated. Frequently rat faeces are cooked with their rice, and the medical milk ration is normally undrinkable due to it being sour or curdled. Since the decline in the Zimbabwean economy, even this low standard has deteriorated. The quality of food is in direct contravention of Section 20(1) of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. This states that every prisoner shall be provided by the administration at the usual hours with food of nutritional value adequate for health and strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and served.

The prison has only one pair of old, hand-operated hair-clippers. These clippers are infrequently sterilised and are used by all the prisoners, even those with lice and open body sores. On occasion, some prisoners have even used these clippers to remove pubic hair.

There is no hot water for showers in Zimbabwean prisons and so the men are restricted to cold water showers only, even in winter, when the ambient temperature can fall below 0°C. They are provided with small pieces of towel twice a year which soon wear out, and they then have to resort to using pieces of blanket (which may well be infected with lethal diseases) because they are not allowed to supply their own towels.

One small transistor radio is shared amongst 140 prisoners, they have no access to television or any other form of recreation. There are also no public telephones for prisoner use.

It would appear that the attitude of the Zimbabwe prison authorities is that people in prison have no rights and they are in jail to suffer. The concept of rehabilitation for offenders does not exist. Life imprisonment as defined by the Zimbabwe Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, Chapter 9.07 is "A complete deprivation of personal liberty", however this is in contradiction with guarantees in Section 15(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe and Article 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It constitutes degrading punishment contrary to Section 15(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe and violates human dignity, as they are permanently denied access to an inviolable domain of private life. In particular, such treatment constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment in that when they are not afforded any prospect of release, this keeps them in a mental state of depression and complete hopelessness.


PERSONAL ABUSES

The history of these men, their arrest and judicial convictions are a violation of the Geneva Convention for the treatment of Prisoners of War and amount to a litany of abuse of their fundamental human rights, as enshrined in the UN International Bill of Human Rights. The UN Body of Principles for the Protection of all Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment 1989 is very clear on this aspect. Principle 3 states that there shall be no restriction upon human rights of any person under detention or imprisonment, i.e. a person does not shed his human rights at the gate to the prison.

Woods, Smith and Conjwayo were sentenced to death in November 1988. They spent 5 years in solitary confinement and were allowed ½ an hour out of their small concrete cells each morning and afternoon. Shortly after conviction, they were forced to spend one and a half years naked. Even during the winter they had no clothing and no blankets. They spent 21 months without sunlight. They were allowed to receive 1 letter per month. They were allowed to write only 1 single-page letter per month. They were permitted one visit from one family member per month. Visits at Chikurubi are of 15 minutes duration and are carried out on monitored and tape-recorded telephones through double glass. After 2 years on Death Row they successfully obtained relief from the Supreme Court in Zimbabwe to double their time out of their cells each day.

These men were reprieved in December 1993 after successfully appealing to the Zimbabwe Supreme Court, claiming that 5 years in these conditions physically and mentally amounted to cruel and inhuman treatment.

In January 1997, prison authorities confiscated their Christmas parcels that had been legally admitted into the prison - an act of blatant discrimination as many common criminals retained their parcels.

Since incarceration they have been allowed three food parcels a year. They have been able to receive enough food in these parcels, especially nutritional items such as peanut butter, dried fruit, etc. to eke out from one parcel to the next. They are proceeding through the Courts to obtain a Court Order to supplement their diets.

On the 7th April 1997 the men were subject to a routine search by approximately 30 prison officers. The behaviour of these officers was deliberately aggressive and lewd:
Humiliating strip searches were conducted in front of other inmates.
Lunch Boxes (supplied by the prison OIC for health reasons) were stamped upon and destroyed
Medically authorised coir mattresses were thrown out on the rubbish pile.
Pillows were torn and the contents strewn about the place amidst raucous, vicious laughter and glee.
Their blankets were thrown all over the place and mixed up with the blankets of other inmates, which were contaminated by infected body fluids.
This is in conflict with Article 5 of the International Bill of Human Rights, which prohibits degrading behaviour

On the 3rd October 1997 these men were granted relief by the Zimbabwe Supreme Court to be allowed to study. Prior to this they were not allowed to study, in contravention of Article 26 of the International Bill of Human Rights and Principle 28 of the UN Body of Principles 1989, which says that the state must provide study resources.

These men are berated and criticised as having "superior being" attitudes (Zimbabwe Financial Gazette, 1st February 1996) because they wear beards and on occasion their hair is too long. The authorities have refused them their own hair clippers, purchased at their own expense. The men are apprehensive of the pair of clippers they are forced to use.

As the prison is unable to cope financially they find themselves having to supply their own soap, toothpaste and cigarettes, all of which are supposed to be supplied by the state. These men all require dental treatment, which is being denied them, ostensibly for security reasons. They are also forced to supply most of their basic medicine and they are forced to pay for private medical treatment, otherwise they must go without. Principle 24 of the UN Body of Principles 1989 states that, a person under detention or imprisonment shall be provided medical treatment free of charge. All other common law prisoners in Chikurubi are given the best medical and dental treatment available at leading facilities.

Bawden and Woods have developed medical problems that can not be treated in Zimbabwe (Thrombosis in leg and coronary heart disease respectively). Their specialists have recommended they be sent to countries where treatment is available - all to no avail. These men have to seek a Court order just to obtain their right to proper medical treatment, which is an extremely protracted and expensive exercise.


YET MORE VICTIMS OF MUGABE, WHO HAS TAKEN THEIR CASE AS HIS PERSONAL HOBBY HORSE.


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