Archbishop Pius Ncube, one of the most vocal opponents of Robert Mugabe, announced his resignation yesterday, after allegations that he had sexual relations with several women. The Roman Catholic Archbishop came under fire in July after images emerged in state-controlled media allegedly showing him naked in bed with a series of women.

He said that he had made the decision to resign “to spare my fellow bishops and the body of the Church any further attacks” from Mr Mugabe. There were a few, he said, “who will be delighted, seeing their mission as having been accomplished”. But he pledged to continue speaking out against the Government, saying: “I have not been silenced by the crude machinations of a wicked regime.”

Archbishop Ncube was summoned on July 16 by a lawyer — accompanied by a string of journalists from official media — to answer allegations of adultery with a woman employed at his office in the western city of Bulawayo. The accusations emerged after he was filmed by a secretly installed camera in his bedroom, which the state-owned Herald newspaper claimed was set up by a private investigator hired by the woman’s husband to secure evidence of the alleged adultery. The husband is now suing the Archbishop for Z$20 billion (£328,000).

Archbishop Ncube’s lawyer previously described the case as an “orchestrated attempt” to embarrass him, but the Archbishop himself has been largely silent on the matter. “It is my feeling that I should face this case in court as Pius Ncube, an individual, not that the Church should seem to be on trial because I am its head,” he said.

Since he was consecrated in 1999, Archbishop Ncube, 60, the second most senior cleric in the Church in Zimbabwe, has attacked Mr Mugabe as “a murderous, corrupt dictator”. and confessing that he prayed for the 83-year-old despot to die.

Observers say that the adultery allegations bore all the signs of being a clumsily staged smear operation by President Mugabe’s secret police, who have repeatedly been caught out manufacturing plots to destroy the credibility of opponents.

The “private investigator” who had the camera placed in the Archbishop’s bedroom turned out to be a senior state intelligence agent. Mr Mugabe unwittingly revealed that he had been briefed on the surveillance before July, when he said some of Zimbabwe’s Catholic bishops “have girlfriends”.

A fortnight ago, the rest of the country’s Catholic bishops backed Archbishop Ncube vigorously. They said Zimbabweans “have not been deceived by the hate propaganda and character assassination against those Zimbabweans who, like Pius, have spoken out in defence of the oppressed”. The Archbishop said that he would remain a bishop, working with “the poorest and most needy” in Zimbabwe.

He said that he had written to Pope Benedict and told him, “within days of what was obviously a state-driven, vicious attack, not just on myself, but on the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe”.

“Typically, he has acted honourably,” said David Coltart, a friend and leading MP of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

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