AP
Posted: 3:44 am
July 6, 2008
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A Zimbabwe prison officer used a hidden camera given to him by a British newspaper to film how he and his colleagues were intimidated into voting for Robert Mugabe in last month's widely criticized presidential runoff.
The Guardian posted the film on its Web site yesterday and said in the film and accompanying stories that the officer, Shepherd Yuda, fled Zimbabwe Friday and was now with his family in an undisclosed location.
International observers said the June 27 runoff was not free or fair, largely because of violence against opposition supporters. There also were reports of ballot tampering as described in Yuda's film, with members of the security forces and others not allowed to vote in secret.
The 10-minute-long film shows a senior official identified as a member of Mugabe's party handing out postal ballots to Yuda and other prison workers and then watching as they mark them.
Later, in private, Yuda sits in front of the camera and says that marking an 'X' on the ballot next to Mugabe's photo "was the most difficult moment of my life."
