A white farmer is set today to become the first member of his community to be jailed for challenging President Mugabe about the right to continue producing food in a country stricken by shortages.

Deon Theron, 53, has reached the end of an extraordinary trial in which, his lawyers say, he has been denied basic justice by court officials desperate to score political points before the most important elections for Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.

On Tuesday, after what little evidence in the trial had been presented, the Harare magistrate refused to allow the lawyer of Mr Theron to deliver his closing submission and answer accusations that her client had occupied his farm illegally after it was declared state property. Instead, he summarily found Mr Theron guilty, stating that he had “blatantly” defied the law.

“I haven't come across a trial like this since independence,” Sheila Jarvis, the lawyer for Mr Theron, said.

Mr Theron has a herd of 400 dairy cattle on his 400-hectare farm in the Beatrice district, about 70km south of Harare. It supplies 8,000 litres of fresh milk to Harare — 2 per cent of the daily consumption of the capital — every day. Milk is scarce in the supermarkets and has to be bought at exorbitant prices on the black market.

Another 12 dairy farmers in the district are being hounded by ruling party apparatchiks trying to grab their farms, livestock and houses.

Mr Theron, a Zimbabwean-born Afrikaner, is a vice-president of the Commercial Farmers' Union. The union used to have 4,500 members, mostly highly productive white farmers. Since Mr Mugabe began to seize land forcibly in 2000 only 600 remain. Nearly all of those are harassed constantly as they struggle to produce food while the Government, which is in effect bankrupt, cannot meet payments to pay for grain imports from neighbouring countries.

His “illegal” occupation of the farm that he bought in 1984 carries a sentence of up to two years in prison. Elias Musakwa, a senior central bank official, claims that he has been allocated it by the Government — in addition to a sugar farm he was given. Mr Musakwa, a parliamentary candidate for Zanu (PF) in the elections on Saturday, has threatened Mr Theron and Martha, his wife, repeatedly, sent dozens of militiamen to harass him and his workers and put up a tent next to the farm's home, claiming that soldiers were about to move in.

Soon after Mr Musakwa arrived last October Mr Theron was charged under one of the many new laws that have eroded the rights of white farmers.

It was revealed that the first magistrate in the case had taken over a white-owned farm. The second told Mr Theron in court - before the trial had begun — to “face the music for your illegal occupation of the land”. The third magistrate has refused to allow the defence team of Mr Theron to present evidence or call witnesses.

“The prosecutor was allowed by the magistrate to interrupt continuously,” Mrs Jarvis said.

“About 90 per cent of the record is objections, allegations and counter allegations from the prosecutor. Every application we made has been ignored. It was just ‘another application from a stupid, white farmer'.

“You can only make this kind of decision if you presume the man is guilty,” she added.

Polling day

— Counting will begin immediately after voting ends at 11,000 polling stations at 7pm on Saturday

— 5.9 million people are eligible to vote

— A results sheet will be attached to the doors of the polling stations for public inspection. Results are sent to a constituency central station for collation, then to Harare for public announcement

— Final results should be announced by Sunday or Monday

— In the presidential election, contested by Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni, if the winner fails to take more than half the votes a second round will be held between the candidates with the most votes

— Parliamentary and council elections are decided by simple majority. Parliamentary elections are for the Senate (60 seats contested) and the House of Assembly (210 contests). In the local elections 1,958 places are being contested

— Polling stations will have four translucent ballot boxes, one each for presidential, senate, assembly and council contests

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