HARARE: Zimbabwe’s former vice president late on Monday fled from anti-corruption questioning after he was summoned over alleged criminal abuse of office, officials said.
Phelekezela Mphoko, 79, who served under long-time ruler Robert Mugabe, was due at the police in Bulawayo, the country’s second city, to record a statement on the allegations. But he drove off as soon as officials from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) approached his car.
"We had agreed to meet at the police post at the magistrate’s court to record a warned-and- cautioned statement and have his fingerprints taken but when our officials approached his car, he drove away at high speed," ZACC spokesman John Makamure told AFP.
"He is now a fugitive from justice," the spokesman said, facing accusations of ordering the release from police custody of a chief executive officer and a non-executive director of the state-run roads authority. Mphoko was, along with current president Emmerson Mnangagwa, one of two vice presidents at the time of the ouster by the military of Mugabe in November 2017.