Writer arrested for defamation

 Harare, Zimbabwe (AP):

A lawyer says a Zimbabwean journalist has been arrested over a report that said police were hiring war veterans to increase the force's power in preparation for elections next year.

President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party was accused of using war veterans and police to beat and torture opposition supporters during the last elections. Lawyer Josaphat Tshuma said yesterday that his client Nqodani Ndlovu, a Standard Newspaper reporter in the southern town of Bulawayo, was still being held a day after being arrested on charges of criminal defamation.

Tshuma says police also wanted to question Harare-based editor Nevanji Madanhire about the report in Sunday's edition of the paper about police and elections. A criminal defamation conviction can carry a penalty of up to two years' imprisonment.