Harare - Police have arrested the financial director of London-registered diamond company African Consolidated Resources, embroiled in a dispute with the Zimbabwe government over the controversial Chiadzwa diamond field, lawyers said Friday.
The incident adds a new twist to the government's bid to seize control of what is regarded as the world's richest diamond field, amid allegations of corruption by senior government officials in the face of court ruling that the claim is the legal property of ACR.
Ian Harris was picked up by detectives at the company's Harare offices Thursday afternoon. The officers were also looking for chief executive Andrew Cranswick, lawyer Jonathan Samkange said.
Cranswick was out of the country, and the police were also seeking two directors of ACRs subsidiary companies on allegations of fraud, he said. One of the directors was deceased and there were no indications of the other's whereabouts.
ACR officials who asked not to be named said that the arrest was harassment. Harris was being held in a Harare township and was due to be taken on Saturday to the eastern city of Mutare to appear in court there next week.
Mines Minister Obert Mpofu has frequently attacked Cranswick in the state media, saying, 'that man will never mine in this country as long as I am minister'.
The minister has four times attempted to cancel ACR's claims and documents show that he personally appointed two little-known South African companies to mine on the claims in alleged violation of official procedures.
Police told ACR officials on Thursday that ACR's subsidiaries, in whose names the Chiadzwa claim is registered, had not been legally incorporated at the time they were awarded the claim, although lawyers said the law gave a two-year leeway within which to register.
Documents also show that one of the companies, Mbada, set up by Mpofu to mine Chiadzwa, had not been registered since they began operating in September last year.
M&C
