THE controversial property magnate Nicholas van Hoogstraten was operating last week from an office in the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, as he strove to do a deal with the regime of President Robert Mugabe to keep his business and land ventures afloat in the pariah nation.

The tycoon, 58, who was released from prison last month after a manslaughter conviction was quashed, is Zimbabwe’s largest private landowner and a vocal supporter and financial backer of Mugabe.

Friends say Hoogstraten hopes to meet Mugabe and other senior officials during a trip that may last several weeks.

Despite his closeness to the regime, much of Hoogstraten’s 600,000 acres of land in Zimbabwe has been damaged by squatters trying to take advantage of Mugabe’s land confiscation policy, which is widely believed to have plunged the country into economic disaster.

Many of Hoogstraten’s employees in Zimbabwe are said to be “scared stiff” about how he will react when he sees the state of his property, given his vindictive reputation.

Hoogstraten was released from Belmarsh prison in London last month after serving 13 months of a 10-year sentence for the manslaughter of a business rival, Mohammed Raja. His conviction was overturned on appeal.

The tycoon, who is based in Sussex, built up his property in Africa in a buying spree in the 1990s. During his trial and imprisonment, much of his network of farms and businesses in Zimbabwe fell into ruin, accelerated by the country’s slide into chaos.

His property includes ostrich farms and mines, and he has 30,000 cattle. However, a rag-tag army of more than 5,000 “war veterans” now lives on Central Estates, one of Hoogstraten’s main ranches, and large stretches are no longer under his managers’ control.

Many of his cattle have been slaughtered or stolen, while the collapse of Zimbabwe’s railway system means he is unable to market coal from Wankie colliery, a mine in which he is the largest shareholder. Copro, Hoogstraten’s ostrich abattoir — capable of dispatching 15,000 birds a year — is running at only 50% capacity.

A sign outside his new base, a house on Golden Stairs Road, Harare, advertises a company called Savannah Wildlife. Employees contacted inside were reluctant to discuss Hoogstraten’s movements and telephone calls put through to him were met by silence.

One of his employees in Zimbabwe was critical of the “royal” treatment Hoogstraten received from Britain’s penal system. He said: “That’s quite a Rolls-Royce justice system you’ve got over there for the likes of Nick. All the time he was in jail, there was a steady flow of faxes and e-mails, giving instructions, sending money.”

The employee said that while Mugabe was desperate for the hard currency Hoogstraten could bring into the country, the dictator could find it difficult to help his old friend.

“The problem is that politicians can say this or that but the peasants who have grabbed Nick’s lands won’t listen to them. The only way he’s going to get his lands back is if they are willing to use the army to clear the peasants by force. It’s hard to imagine Mugabe doing that for a white man.”

Additional reporting: Tom Walker

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