Zimbabwe Breaks Up South Africa Spy Ring

A South African spymaster has been arrested in Zimbabwe in a sting operation and is accused of running an espionage ring inside the country involving a number of prominent officials.

The Guardian has been told that the agent was captured on December 15 in Victoria Falls after being lured into Zimbabwe from Zambia across a bridge spanning the Zambezi river.

At the same time five prominent Zimbabweans were arrested, all of whom are closely linked to the inner circle of Robert Mugabe's ruling party, Zanu-PF. All five have been charged with espionage.

Sources close to the South African government confirmed the intelligence officer is being held by Zimbabwe's central intelligence organisation, and is providing information about the network he had set up. It is expected he will be returned to South Africa.

The five Zimbabweans charged with espionage are: Philip Chiyangwa, a Zanu-PF provincial chairman and MP, Godfrey Dzvairo, Zimbabwe's ambassador-designate to Mozambique, Kennedy Karidza, Zanu-PF's security director, Tendai Matambanadzo, a director of Metropolitan Bank, and Itai Marchi, Zanu-PF's director of external affairs.

The identity of the South African has not been revealed but a South African source said he was a senior officer in the South African secret service who was 48 and white.

The secret agent, the Guardian was told, had travelled to Zambia's resort town of Livingstone where he was to meet a senior Zimbabwean intelligence officer. At the last minute the Zimbabwean persuaded him to come across to Victoria Falls where they would meet in a hotel. The South African was arrested when he crossed the border.

He was allegedly paying Mr Chiyangwa £5,300 a month for information about the inner workings of Zanu-PF, according to evidence emerging from Harare court hearings.

Mr Chiyangwa and the others face up to 20 years in jail if convicted of the charges.

The South Africans are trying to play down the arrest, saying the agent had been involved in routine intelligence gathering.

But analysts believe South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, had launched a high-level spying operation against Mr Mugabe.

"It shows that Mbeki has very bad relations with Mugabe," said Gail Wannenburg, a researcher for the South African Institute for International Affairs.

"It shows that Mbeki is thinking that he cannot trust what Mugabe says to him. So far Mbeki has been outmanoeuvred by Mugabe. Mbeki expected some concessions from Mugabe in terms of election reforms, something that he could take to SADC [the Southern African Development Community, a regional body of 14 countries] as superficially acceptable improvements. But Mugabe has not done that."

The revelations came as Mr Mbeki's party, the ANC, criticised the Mugabe government. Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC's secretary general, said Zimbabwe's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, should be allowed to hold meetings freely.

It must apply to police to hold a meeting of more than five people, and the police routinely refuse permission.

"You cannot have a registered party restricted in this way," Mr Motlanthe said this week.