JACK STRAW was under pressure yesterday to persuade Interpol, the international crime fighting body, to withdraw its plans to honour Zimbabwe’s notorious police chief.

In a move denounced as staggering by British MPs and human rights activists, Interpol has agreed to make Augustine Chihuri an honorary vice-president despite his role in the torture and beating of Zimbabwean civilians.

Mr Chihuri has been accused of using Zimbabwe’s police force as a private army for President Mugabe, and has been given one of the country’s richest farms as a reward for the eviction of white farmers from their properties and persecution of black workers.

The force he heads has become an instrument of Mr Mugabe’s ruling Zanu (PF) party. Mr Chihuri has been linked with allegations of corruption but Mr Mugabe has continued to renew his period of office.

Mr Chihuri has repaid Mr Mugabe with absolute dedication. Shortly before controversial presidential elections last year, Mr Chihuri, with the rest of the Government’s service chiefs, declared publicly that they would refuse to obey Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, if he won the election.

A report last month by the Solidarity Peace Trust, a human rights watchdog governed by the heads of Churches in southern Africa, claimed that of 100 reports of torture examined by doctors from mid-February to mid-March in the western city of Bulawayo, “every case implicated the police as perpetrators”.

About the same time, Zimbabwe’s leading civil liberties body, the Human Rights Forum, appealed for the police to be reformed immediately before the rule of law “disappears completely”.

Michael Ancram, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, wrote to Mr Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday to demand: “What kind of message does this send to the Mugabe regime? Far from being ostracised, it is being honoured.

“The UK is a member of Interpol and responsibility for our membership falls under your jurisdiction. What protest did you lodge against this ludicrous appointment?” Officials at Interpol’s headquarters in Lyons refused to say why Mr Chihuri had been given the award. It was made by a committee composed of Spain, France and Germany.

Human rights groups fear that the award will allow the Zimbabwean Commissioner to flout the European Union travel ban on key figures in President Mugabe’s regime.

The French Government has allowed Mr Chihuri regularly to attend Interpol meetings. Interpol was criticised for allowing Mr Chihuri to serve a six-year term as its vice- president for Africa that ended last October.

Interpol officials declined to say why they did not publicise their decision in February to appoint Mr Chihuri as an honorary vice-president, the first officer from southern Africa to receive such an honour.

It was left to Zimbabwe’s state-run newspapers to boast about the appointment, which government officials in Harare described as a “show of confidence” in their police force.

The British representative on Interpol is the Director-General of the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), who was John Abbott when the award was made. He has since been replaced by Peter Hempson.

A spokesman for the main Zimbabwe opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said: “This is a disgrace and an insult to all those who suffered terrible beatings and torture (under) Commissioner Chihuri.”

Peter Tatchell, the civil liberties campaigner who demanded that Interpol arrest Mr Chihuri when he attended one of their meetings in Lyons last August, said: “It’s astonishing a body dedicated to upholding the rule of law rewards a police commissioner whose officers stand accused of beating, torturing and murdering peaceful protesters.”

In his letter to Mr Straw, Mr Ancram said: “Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri is one of Mugabe’s closest cronies and, as you well know, is the subject of targeted sanctions by both the EU and US. I find it quite staggering to learn that Mr Chihuri has been made the honorary vice-president of Interpol.”

Mr Chihuri, who was educated in Britain, has refused to obey a High Court order for his officers to evict squatters on white-owned farms.

A spokesman for the Foreign Secretary said last night that Mr Chihuri’s award was an “automatic sinecure” given to any official serving two terms. He emphasised that no British police officer sat on the Interpol committee that made the award and the Foreign Office had not been consulted.

He would not say whether Mr Straw would write to Interpol urging them to strip Mr Chihuri of the award. He receives no insignia or salary.

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