To the regret of some of his victims, Robert Mugabe never ended up in court. Had he done, the charge sheet against him would have been long.

Over 37 years of increasingly grotesque misrule, he beggared one of Africa’s most prosperous states, presided over the second most severe bout of hyperinflation in world history and took his once well-fed people to the brink of starvation. 

Amid the economic chaos, he instituted a cruel and capricious tyranny, allowing his greedy ministers and greedier wife to plunder the country, steal elections and beat opponents. By the time he was ousted in 2017, Zimbabwe had become as decrepit as the doddery old man who led it.

Yet, had he retired when he was 65, back…

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