Posted on 11/12/2002 4:55:53 PM PST by blam
Zimbabwe police kill American aid worker
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 13/11/2002)
An American aid worker who was helping to feed hundreds of starving schoolchildren in Zimbabwe was shot dead by security forces at a road block.
Dick Gilman, 58, a retired American software specialist from Connecticut who had been in the country for less than three weeks, was shot near the border with Mozambique on Monday. A US embassy official said two American officials had been sent to the eastern town of Mutare to investigate the shooting.
Police in Harare said Mr Gilman had been "rude" and had tried to run down two policemen and was killed by a glancing shot which lodged in his shoulder.
His relatives angrily disputed this account. His brother, Howard Gilman, said he was stopped at a semi-permanent road block manned by "aggressive" police and armed soldiers, and asked to produce his passport and customs papers for his car, hired in South Africa.
He said his brother did not have his passport on him, and left his car papers with the security forces at the road block.
"He came back to the flat and we talked about what had happened. He had not noticed that the papers for the car he hired in Johannesburg had the wrong date stamped on them by customs - 1998 instead of 2002 - so he picked up his passport and returned to the road block.
"The next thing I got a call from the police to go to the central police station, where I was abruptly told my brother had been shot and was dead. When I later saw him in the morgue, I saw two bullet wounds, and wondered if he had been left to bleed to death by the side of the road."
Howard Gilman was working as a volunteer at a United Methodist Church university in Mutare.
He added: "My brother came to visit me first in November 2000, and he was a backpacker type. One day, he went off and found this poor school in the hills, met the headmaster, and began to help with all sorts of things and he has provided food for 840 children until next March."
You've probably just heard the last you'll ever hear about this story.
Mr. Mugabe is obviously not with us.
Now we just need to make it so is no longer with us.
| American Humanitarian Killed By Police In Zimbabwe | ||||||
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...your post has some details missing from mine- it's a peculiar case. He sure picked a dangerous land to travel to. |
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