SOUTHERN
AFRICA
3 Americans jailed for 6 months on arms
charges After a web of arguments and conflicting views on
intention, three American men who insisted they are
missionaries rather than mercenaries have been found guilty
(on Friday, September 10) and jailed (on Monday July 13,
1999) for possessing arms of war by a Zimbabwean court on
1999. The sentencing by a High Court judge in this southern
African nation ends the strange saga of Gary Blanchard, 36,
John Lamonte Dixon, 36, and Joseph Wendell Pettijohn, 35,
who called themselves gun-loving missionaries and later
alleged they were brutally treated in prison. The government
originally accused them of being mercenaries and denied the
mistreatment. Judge Ismael Adams gave each the same concurrent
sentences: six months for possessing weapons of war, and 21
months (with nine suspended) for taking dangerous materials
aboard an airliner. Adams credited them with time served
after their arrest March 7, and with time off for good
behaviour, the three could be out in November. They had
faced up to life in prison. In convicting them on Friday, Adams found the men had
violated Zimbabwe security laws that forbid unlicensed
offensive weapons and had tried to transport guns in their
baggage on a Zurich-bound Swissair flight from Harare on
March 7. Blanchard, Dixon and Pettijohn say they belong to the
Indiana-based Harvestfield Ministries Pentecostal church.
During the two-week trial, Blanchard and Pettijohn testified
that they closed down their mission in the war-torn southern
DRC town of Lubumbashi and concealed 43 handguns and rifles
and other weaponry in the panels of their truck. They said they had taken the weapons to DRC for
self-defence and hunting, and wanted to take them back to
the United States. Adam said the men admitted that the
number of weapons they took to DRC may have been excessive,
even considering the chaos in 1997 when dictator Mobutu Sese
Seko was ousted. In 1998, a year-long civil war began. The bitterly controversial case seemed against their
interests by the fact the men were armed, apparently beyond
hunting equipment. When the men were arrested trying to load
weapons onto a Swissair flight at Harare airport on March 7,
Zimbabwean government officials accused them of being
"spies", "mercenaries" and "assassins", sparking
demonstrations against the United States. However, when the
case came to court, initial charges of plotting acts of
terrorism were dropped and replaced with the charges on
which they were convicted. The men admitted possessing weapons, but said they were
trying to ship them home to the United States via Zurich
after keeping them for self-protection and hunting while
working as missionaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC). The three men have already been in jail for six
months and say they were tortured with electric shocks to
their genitals and severely beaten after their arrest. -
USAfricaonline with reports from Sapa/AFP/news24
in Zimbabwe
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