The lawyer, Nicholas Mathonsi, said the fact that at least 12 people — including state newspaper reporters and television crews from the capital, Harare — accompanied court officials to serve the charges against the archbishop July 16 indicates “a big operation that involves the state.”

Charges in Zimbabwe “are never served like this, in the presence of the media,” Mathonsi told Catholic News Service in a July 18 telephone interview from Bulawayo.

Ncube, an outspoken opponent of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, told CNS by telephone that the allegations of a two-year adulterous relationship with a parish secretary have caused “a lot of sensation.” He said he has been advised not to comment on the allegations.

{sidebar id=2} Mathonsi, who filed a notice to challenge the charges in Bulawayo’s civil court, said: “The judge will preside when the case is heard in court. If the matter is tried in the press, with this kind of publicity, there will be no fair trial.”

According to Zimbabwe’s state media, Onesimus Sibanda is claiming $160,000 in damages from Ncube for the alleged affair with his wife, Rosemary Sibanda.

The documents handed to Ncube at his office in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Bulawayo call Sibanda a “railway technician attached to” the National Railways of Zimbabwe, with no other details about him or his employment, said Mathonsi, noting that he filed a request at the court July 18 for “particulars of the allegations.”

The scandal has dominated Zimbabwe’s state-owned television and radio news. TV broadcasts showed Ncube speaking to reporters outside the cathedral July 16.

“We are human beings, and we are all sinners,” he was shown saying.

“I will not answer those questions which concern my private life,” he said.

State-run newspapers published photos they said were of Ncube and a woman, taken with a concealed camera placed in the archbishop’s bedroom by a private investigator hired by Sibanda. Doubts have been expressed that a state-employed railway technician could have paid for the sophisticated operation.

For years Mugabe, 83, has singled out Ncube for condemnation, but the president extended his antagonism toward the nation’s Catholic Church after an Easter pastoral letter in which Zimbabwe’s bishops said the country was in “deep crisis” and “extreme danger” because of its “overtly corrupt” leadership.

In early July, Mugabe accused Ncube and other church leaders of “peddling falsehoods about Zimbabwe’s governance.”

“Where is the godliness? Don’t listen to what they say. One cannot tell the difference between a bishop and a layman any more. Some of them have sworn to celibacy but they sleep around,” The Associated Press quoted Mugabe as telling supporters.

In March Ncube urged Zimbabweans to take to the streets in protest against government oppression and said he was willing to risk his life by leading them.

Zimbabwe is crippled by the highest rate of inflation in the world, unemployment of more than 80 per cent, and shortages of foreign currency and fuel. Food shortages are acute, large numbers of people are migrating to the neighbouring countries of South Africa and Botswana, and, with elections scheduled for March, political violence has intensified.