Spy plots intensify

under Jesuits sponsorship and some of them are either serving or retired from the Italian army.”

Health and Child Care Permanent Secretary Retired Brigadier-General Dr Gerald Gwinji yesterday said he was unaware of the visit by the Italians.

“I am not aware of such a team. It could be that the hospital had its arrangements, but I don’t know much about that,” he said.

Contacted for comment, one of the heads at St Albert’s Dr Julia Musariri professed ignorance over McNamara’s visit.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she said before hanging up the phone.

The revelations come at a time British Ambassador to Zimbabwe Ms Catriona Laing is alleged to have lied about suspected British spies who sneaked into the country early this month.

A Cabinet Minister last week dismissed her claims that the visit was linked to the aviation sector.

The revelations give further evidence that the suspected undercover agents came to Harare as part of Britain’s plot to subvert the Government through sponsoring opposition parties and shadowy “hashtag movements”.

Ambassador Laing told journalists soon after meeting Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Dr Christopher Mushohwe, last week, that Samuel Hamilton Adamson and Gordon Donald Birnie had come to Zimbabwe on aviation security business.

She said, “We certainly don’t have spies here. We had a team here which was looking at aviation security and trying to assist the Government of Zimbabwe. The story that there were spies here is completely fabricated.”

However, Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo who superintends the aviation sector denied that Government had made any correspondence with the dubious duo.

Adamson and Birnie visited Zimbabwe on September 5 and alert authorities raised the raised flag about the clandestine visit.

The two British operatives are understood to be known for engineering violent street “protests” in North and West Africa and it is believed that they visited Zimbabwe on a similar mission as the West ratcheted its plot to destabilise the country by sponsoring civil unrest.

Dr Gumbo said, “I have no knowledge whatsoever of those two and I only read it in the newspaper. If they were indeed working on issues to do with aviation, I would have been in a position to know.”

“In the aviation sector there are a number of foreign countries that we are working with and it is something that I readily have knowledge of. I recently visited Ethiopia and toured the Aviation Academy there.

‘‘We are looking at establishing a similar academy here in Zimbabwe because a good number of our people receive training in Ethiopia.

“The other talks I have had in recent weeks regarding aviation where with officials from Spain who are also willing to assist us in this sector.

“I have nothing on my table regarding any dealings with aviation experts from Britain. So if indeed these two were doing business relating to aviation, I would have known because it is an area that I am very much interested in,” he said.

Acting Secretary for Foreign Affairs Ambassador David Hamadziripi declined to comment last week and referred questions to a spokesperson in the Ministry who asked this paper to speak to the Department of Immigration.

Officials from the Department of Immigration who spoke off-record told The Sunday Mail that the visit by the Britons was suspicious.

“The department became suspicious of the visit because we were not clear as to their mission. The British embassy only listed them as officials so it appeared that from the onset they wanted to protect them under the banner of diplomatic immunity so that they could escape scrutiny,” the official said.

During their visit, eyebrows were raised when the British embassy officials indicated that the two wanted to travel out of