A Roman Catholic archbishop who once admitted that he prayed for President Mugabe’s death has been accused of having an affair with a member of his own staff.

The Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, is being sued for £80,000 by Onesimus Sibanda, whose wife, Rosemary, worked as a secretary in Archbishop Ncube’s office. Mr Sibanda, an employee of the state railways, claims that the affair lasted for two years.

Archbishop Ncube has denied the allegations, saying that they were the latest attempt to discredit him. Adultery is illegal in Zimbabwe, although it is rarely prosecuted in the courts.

The legal action, begun yesterday amid a fanfare of publicity, was lodged less than a week after Archbishop Ncube returned from a trip abroad, where he had been criticising President Mugabe’s Government. State radio said that Mrs Sibanda had admitted to its reporters that she had been intimate with Archbishop Ncube.

The archbishop is one of President Mugabe’s most vociferous and fearless critics inside Zimbabwe. He has openly denounced him as a murderous, corrupt dictator who has pursued a deliberate policy of starving thousands of Zimbabweans to death.

President Mugabe, who considers himself a devout Catholic, threatened bishops with violence after they published a pastoral letter that declared Zimbabwe’s political leaders “habitually engage in acts and words which are hateful, disrespectful, racist, corrupt, lawless, unjust, greedy, dishonest and violent, in order to cling to the privileges of power and wealth”.

Two weeks ago he said that “some of them have sworn to celibacy, but they sleep around”.

The summons was served yesterday by Lazarus Nzarayepenga, the assistant deputy-sheriff of Bulawayo, in Western Zimbabwe. He was followed to St Mary’s Cathedral by a state television crew, a photographer and a small crowd of supporters.

Nicholas Mathonsi, who is Archbishop Ncube’s lawyer, said: “It is the first time in this country that a summons has been served with people in attendance taking pictures. You can actually see it was some kind of orchestrated attempt to embarrass the archbishop.” He said that after serving the summons the group moved to St Mary’s courtyard “and started conducting some kind of press conference. When they were asked to leave, they were not very co-operative.” Mr Mathonsi said that he had not taken instructions from Archbishop Ncube, as the archbishop had been too busy.

President Mugabe’s ruling Zanu (PF) party has a long record of incriminating and humiliating its opponents by manipulating police and judicial officials to bring trumped-up charges against them. In 2003 the Government began a two-year campaign to have Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, hanged for treason. The plot failed when the judge accepted that the chief witness had been hired by the Government to entrap Mr Tsvangirai.

David Coltart, an opposition MP, said: “I have worked with Pius since 1983. Knowing the integrity of the person, I would be extremely surprised if there is any substance to the allegation.”

This year Archbishop Ncube called on Zimbabweans to take to the streets in their thousands to demand the removal of President Mugabe. “We must be ready to stand, even in front of blazing guns,” he said.

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