S Africa denies asylum to Zimbabwe opposition figure

JOHANNESBURG, May 26 (Reuters) South Africa has denied political asylum to former Zimbabwe opposition legislator Roy Bennett, who fled into exile after being accused of participating in a plot to kill President Robert Mugabe.

Bennett, a former legislator for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had applied for asylum in South Africa last month.

''Roy Bennett's application was not approved,'' Ministry of Home Affairs spokesman Nkosana Sibuyi said, declining to go into specifics of the case.

Bennett, a former farmer who was jailed for eight months in 2004 for assaulting a cabinet minister during parliamentary debate, was one of the few white Zimbabweans to remain active in politics following Mugabe's decision in 2000 to seize white-owned farms to give to landless blacks.

He was barred from standing in parliamentary elections held while he was serving his sentence in March 2005.

But Bennett, a popular figure commonly known as ''Pachedu'' - which means ''one-of-us'' in Zimbabwe's Shona language - was elected in absentia treasurer of the main MDC party led by Morgan Tsvangirai soon after the March treason charges.

Bennett was among eight people, including a sitting MDC legislator, accused of plotting to topple the government and assassinate Mugabe after the discovery of what security forces said was an arms cache in the eastern border city of Mutare.

Charges against six of the accused were dropped. But the state has not come out clearly on whether those against Bennett, who was never arrested and formally charged, still stand.

The MDC has denied involvement in any military plot against the government, and the opposition and rights groups say the charges were part of Mugabe's campaign to silence his critics.

Sibuyi said Bennett could remain in South Africa if he decided to appeal the asylum ruling, but that the ministry had no word yet on whether he intended to do so.

REUTERS SHR BST2126