Zimbabwe judge escapes to NZ

A Zimbabwean judge who fled imprisonment in after being convicted of corruption is reported to have taken refuge in New Zealand.

Benjamin Paradza skipped Zimbabwe last January - after he was convicted, but before being sentenced for attempted corruption - and was later sentenced to two years in absentia by Justice Simpson Mtambanengwe.

The British Mail on Sunday newspaper reported Mr Paradza's asylum application was rejected by Britain, even though his supporters had put together a £40,000 ($NZ122,000) university fellowship fund for him.

Mr Paradza then moved to New Zealand where he was immediately granted refuge, the newspaper said.

Similarly, a state newspaper in the Zimbabwe capital of Harare, the Herald, reported the United Nations Commission on Human Rights must have facilitated Mr Paradza's move to New Zealand.

Government spokesman George Charamba said the move smacked of "hypocrisy on the part of British Government".

"It is a false drama, after all, that Britain has refused Paradza asylum," Charamba told the Herald.

"What's the difference between Britain and New Zealand anyway? Besides that it's a known fact that New Zealand is part of the British establishment. So really, Britain has not refused him asylum. It has simply relocated him to one of its overseas territories."

In Wellington, a spokeswoman for the Department of Labour said: "The Immigration Act has special provisions for confidentiality of information around refugee claimants."

She said the act prevented the department from commenting on individual refugees.

But she also said: "We've had a referral from the UNHCR and they've done an assessment of the refugee, provided us with a dossier of information." Applications for refugee status from Zimbabwe, Iraq and Afghanistan were also screened by a high-risk profiling group.

"There's been quite a lot of checking done by both the UNHCR and by the immigration service and we're basically comfortable with the information provided."

Mr Paradza - who was convicted in a judicial process criticised by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and the International Commission of Jurists - was reported to have crossed into South Africa in a truck, and then sought refugee status in Britain.

A hero of the liberation struggle against white minority rule, he was widely regarded as one of the last independent judges in Zimbabwe at the time of his arrest.

- NZPA