Barry Soper: Zimbabwean William Nduku doesn't deserve sympathy

William Nduku arrived here the year before last on a fake South African passport. Photo / 123RF

Don't know about you but my blood ran cold when the plight of a Zimbabwean now living in this country was laid bare.

William Nduku arrived here the year before last on a fake South African passport and immediately sought asylum which, not surprisingly, he's been refused.

This 31-year-old says at 19 he was forced to serve in Robert Mugabe's secret police and participated in up to 20 murders, several rapes and multiple tortures.

Yes, you've read right.

It defies imagination, let alone logic, why this man is allowed to live freely in this country.

He did spend several months in Mt Eden Prison and alleges he was assaulted by the Mongrel Mob on a regular basis and says he wouldn't wish the experience on anybody, which is incredibly ironic considering what he subjected so many of his own countrymen to in his past.

Nduku recounts the time he took a badly beaten man in the boot of a car that he was expected to drive into a lake after the boot was filled with concrete. He left the boot unlocked, which he guesses could have given the man a fighting chance.

He eventually fled Zimbabwe saying his own life was at risk.

The Government here is remaining mum on the case after refusing him asylum, and a work or a student visa. Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse says through his spin doctor that he stands by all the decisions that have been made in the case. And although the Prime Minister, in something of an understatement, says he understands people's concerns about this man living among them, he says the law has to be followed.

Nduku says he feels that the Government wants him to steal so he can survive, which he says he'd never do.

Again, the law's an ass and so are the officials who let him into the country on a fake passport.

Under normal circumstances someone who's been denied refugee or asylum status would be deported and that's what should happen to this man, sent with his fake passport back to South Africa.

Or, if we're so concerned about his well-being, he should be incarcerated for his crimes as any citizen of this country would be if they admitted to such atrocities.