Zimbabwe’s attorney general today claimed that the state would move to have its key witness in the terrorism trial of an ally of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai impeached for giving contradicting evidence.

The trial of Roy Bennett -who astonishingly faces a possible death sentence on charges of illegal possession of arms for purposes of committing terrorism, banditry and sabotage -resumed with chief state witness Peter Hitschmann testifying.

Bennett, treasurer-general in Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has repeatedly denied the charges and accuses President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party of political persecution and trying to stop him from taking up the post of deputy agriculture minister.

This is the latest chapter in what many are referring to as the ‘Roy Bennett Saga’, an affair which has paralyzed democracy in the nation, continued to stifle foreign investment, divide the citizenry and further the Mugabe doctrine. Mr Bennett is hated by the top echelon of Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party, particularly the powerful coterie of military men close to the President, because he is a former white farmer and an ex-member of the Rhodesian security forces – and because he is popular with many black Zimbabweans. His command of the Shona language and knowledge of their customs means that they regard him as one of their own.

The political turbulence reached a fever pitch recently, when controversial legislator Jonathan Moyo stated that “to swear MDC treasurer-general Roy Bennett, into Zimbabwe’s unity government would be akin to having a former NAZI infantryman serving as a deputy Minister of Justice in Israel today”.

Moyo, once the Minister of Information and Publicity in President Robert Mugabe’s government, became Zimbabwe’s only independent Member of Parliament until he was recently allowed to re-join Zanu-PF, the party that booted him out in 2005.

Moyo said the MDC’s choice of Bennett as deputy Minister of Agriculture was “deeply provocative and treacherous”.

Today, Hitschmann, 49, a former police officer and arms dealer, disowned some of the weapons attributed to him by the state as well as e-mail print-outs purportedly showing communication between him and Bennett.

The state says Hitschmann is an accomplice witness and its case hinges on confessions said to have been made by the arms trader implicating Bennett in 2006.

Hitschmann has disowned the confessions, including a video recording, saying he was tortured to make the statements.

Attorney General Johannes Tomana told High Court judge Chinembiri Bhunu that Hitschmann’s testimony was different from statements he made on his arrest, implicating Bennett, and would move to have him impeached by the court.

Political stability hinges on the outcome of the Roy Bennett trial. We must all hope the courts find Mr. Bennett not guilty, have him return to the ranks of the Movement for Democratic Change and see some of the same fire from the party that brought them toe-to-toe with the oppressive Zanu-PF in the first place, those few years ago. It is only due to their interference and the Prime Minister’s touting Zimbabwe as on the rise to western leaders that we have seen positive change to the region and only through a fair and just court can Zimbabwe truly gain tangible ground democratically.