Rankin accuses Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri of contempt of court for refusing a previous court order to order police officers to remove squatters from the farm he was evicted from in January.

Squatters loyal to a Zimbabwe-born British doctor, Sylvester Nyatsuro, who runs a clinic in Nottingham in the UK, have moved into his farmhouse in the Centenary district of north east Zimbabwe and say the farms now belong to Nyatsuro.

Police forced Rankin off the farm in January and removed all his furniture and personal possessions from the farmhouse, dropping them at a warehouse.

Rankin and his wife Anita were prevented by police guards from returning. Squatters who had been living in a cottage on the farms for several months, moved into the main farmhouse after Rankin was evicted. They are still there.

Rankin brought a successful urgent application to the Harare High Court in March seeking Nyatsuro’s eviction and claiming his right to return to his home.

But police have ignored the court order and refused to remove the squatters from Rankin’s house, according to lawyers representing Rankin.

Many suspect first lady Grace Mugabe, who is a friend of Nyatsuro’s wife Veronica, is playing a role in this land grab. Veronica Nyatsuro shops for Grace Mugabe in the UK – from where Mugabe and his wife are banned – and regularly returns to Zimbabwe. She manages her husband’s slimming clinic in Nottingham.

All of Rankin’s farm equipment remains on the farm and Rankin says he wants to return and grow another crop. He has continued paying his workers since he was evicted.

Under phone instruction, they reaped most of the tobacco crop which was in the ground when he was evicted, and cured it. He sold it in Harare.

But Rankin says the cycle of tobacco production was badly affected by his eviction and he will not cover his costs.

Police acted unusually in the Rankin case. During thousands of invasions of white-owned farms post-2000, police did not assist white farmers resist eviction, even when this was declared illegal by the courts. But neither did they play an active role in helping land invaders and Zanu PF activists force white farmers out their homes, as they did with Rankin.

About 4,000 white farmers have been evicted from their farms and homes since 2000 .

--ANA--