Two Al Jazeera investigations later, why is Uebert Angel still Zimbabwe’s envoy?

Uebert Angel wants Zimbabweans to watch their tone when they speak about Constantino Chiwenga. On Sunday, 1 November, the preacher used his pulpit to defend the Vice President and urged listeners to humble themselves and let him work. Criticism was permissible, Angel said, but contempt dressed up as criticism was evil. I would like to take him at his word and ask a civil question. After two Al Jazeera investigations featured him, what has President Emmerson Mnangagwa seen that warrants keeping Angel as his envoy?

There is a harder version of that question. How has this man never had to answer these allegations in a criminal court? An arrest requires evidence of a suspected offence. What the government owes us is an account of what investigators established and what became of the inquiry it announced in April 2023. The police themselves promised to give the public details once their initial inquiries were complete.

Consider what Zimbabweans actually saw in Gold Mafia. Undercover reporters posed as criminals with a fortune in dirty cash. Angel discussed bringing it into Zimbabwe under diplomatic cover and exchanging it for gold. The reporters had invented their criminal enterprise. The presidential appointment that Angel invoked to make the offer credible was real. His lawyer, Lovemore Madhuku, later said Angel had been playing along as part of an intelligence operation. Who authorised that operation? Did investigators verify his account? Those are questions the state can answer from its own records.

One agency did explain its decision. The Reserve Bank’s Financial Intelligence Unit lifted its freeze on Angel’s assets after finding no transactions or assets linked to the alleged financial crimes. Its statement expressly left room for further police investigations. That finding matters. So does its limit. Examining bank transactions answers a different question from establishing what a presidential envoy was authorised to offer in Zimbabwe’s name.

Then came Contract Killers and the Far Right. This investigation revisited a rally held around the Glasgow climate summit in 2021. Al Jazeera reported that participants had been recruited to give the appearance of British public support for lifting sanctions on Zimbabwe. Angel attended. Reporting linked him to £2,600 associated with staging the event, although it did not establish that he personally handed over the money. Zimbabweans can reasonably ask who commissioned the rally, who paid for it and whether a single dollar came from public funds. The presidency could clear up much of this by producing the invoice.

What made Sunday’s sermon particularly objectionable was Angel’s decision to bring Marry Mubaiwa into it. He told listeners not to join Chiwenga’s former wife in criticising him. Here is the detail that deserves to travel as widely as the sermon. On 27 October, days before Angel preached, a Harare magistrate acquitted Mubaiwa of attempting to murder Chiwenga. She had spent seven years on remand on that charge. She was entitled to speak. Her former husband’s office gave a congregation no special reason to disregard her.

Mnangagwa appointed Angel and can explain why he retains his confidence. The police can say whether their inquiry remains open, whether they referred a docket to prosecutors or whether they closed it, and on what grounds. None of that requires a verdict from a pulpit or a conviction by newspaper. It requires officials to put their names to decisions for which they are responsible. Angel had plenty to say on Sunday about the respect Zimbabweans owe their leaders. I am still waiting to hear what those leaders think they owe us.