Zimbabwe PM flown to Botswana after crash

ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was flown to neighbouring Botswana for medical tests on Saturday after being seriously injured in a car crash that killed his wife, his party said.

“I do not know when he will be back, he will undergo a check-up, but he is out of danger now,” a spokesman for Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said.

Tsvangirai, who suffered neck and head injuries in Friday’s crash, was seen by an AFP reporter hours earlier walking out of the Avenues Clinic in Harare accompanied by MDC ministers.

The crash happened as Tsvangirai and his wife Susan, 50, were travelling from Harare to their rural hometown of Buhera, where the new prime minister was due to speak at a rally. His wife died at the scene.

The MDC has vowed to launch its own investigation and, although officials have not suggested foul play, the party’s number two and the finance minister, Tendai Biti, indicated that a police escort might have prevented the accident.

“Police are making their own investigation, we are also making our own,” Biti said, adding about the escort: “The authorities could have avoided this omission.”

Tsvangirai’s car was hit by a truck which crossed into the oncoming lane and side-swiped the prime minister’s vehicle, causing it to roll several times, police said.

Harare,Sunday, AFP