Harare, May 16: Zimbabwe immigration officials today ordered US journalist Andrew Meldrum to leave the southern African country, where he has been based for 23 years. No official reason was given for the deportation, although Meldrum, who reports for Britain's Guardian newspaper, told reporters he had been declared a "prohibited immigrant".
"I have been declared a prohibited immigrant. I am being deported," he told reporters outside government immigration offices in Harare. He was manhandled by police as he shouted, "This is not the action of a government confident of its own legitimacy."
Police officers and immigration officials then bundled the 51-year-old reporter into a waiting car and drove away. "They said they're taking him to the airport," said Meldrum's lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa. She added that she was applying for an urgent high court order to bar the deportation.
Eyewitnesses said Meldrum was at the airport this morning. It was not clear if he had been booked onto a flight out of the country. Bureau Report