Jonathan Clayton, The Times’s Africa correspondent, arrived safely in Johannesburg yesterday after being imprisoned, tortured and interrogated by the Zimbabwean security services.

Clayton was arrested last Wednesday on a minor immigration charge when he flew into Bulawayo, the country’s second-largest city. He was quickly handed over by the police to security services, who blindfolded and handcuffed him, deprived him of sleep and water, and interrogated him for hours in a prison cell in Bulawayo.

After his initial ordeal, at just after midnight on Wednesday, the veteran Africa correspondent was driven in the back of a car to a second interrogation centre. When his blindfold was taken off, Clayton saw 14 men and one woman waiting to question him. “They made me sit on the floor with my legs crossed,” he said yesterday from Johannesburg. “And they began interrogating me. It did not go very well from their point of view.

“They asked me everything. They wanted to know everything about me. Where I had gone to school, from Day 1. They threatened me and they beat me. The chief interrogator kicked the soles of my feet and then hit me across the face. He tried to make me stand on my head and stand on one leg. I did very badly and got angry.”

Clayton, 54, was held in a cell until Monday, when he appeared before a local magistrate. During the trial he was remanded to Bulawayo prison with more than 20 other prisoners and no food or water. “Some people from the local church brought me food,” he said. “Without that I would not have got through this.”

The Times correspondent was acquitted on Wednesday of falsifying his immigration form but found guilty of making a false declaration to immigration officers. He was fined 20 billion Zimbabwe dollars (about £200) and deported. His lawyer is appealing.

In Harare a judge also freed Barry Bearak, a New York Times correspondent, and Stephen Bevan, a British journalist working for The Sunday Telegraph. They had both been accused of covering the election illegally. A freelance cameraman was also arrested on Tuesday while filming in Harare.

Unlike Bearak and Bevan, Clayton had not been working as a journalist when he was arrested.

Richard Beeston, the foreign editor of The Times, said: “We are all extremely relieved that Jonathan is free. In spite of his ordeal, we are determined to continue to report what is going on in the country.”

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