Michael Banana, the son of the first President of Zimbabwe Canaan Banana, died yesterday in the UK. Veteran journalist Ezra Tshisa Sibanda confirmed the sad development on his Facebook account:
I’m deeply saddened and shocked by the sudden death of Michael Banana in Liverpool, UK today. It’s reported that he just collapsed and died, this is unbelievable and so so painfull. My heart goes to his family and MHDSRIP.
Michael’s father Canaan Sodindo Banana, a former Methodist minister, was found guilty in 1999 of 11 counts of sodomy and abusing his power to sexually assault and carry out “unnatural acts” with men, most of whom were on his presidential staff.
Banana’s trial, which included testimony of sex with gardeners, cooks and bodyguards, overshadowed his positive role in ending the ethnic violence in Matabeleland.
In May 2000 Zimbabwe’s supreme court upheld Banana’s conviction for sodomy and jailed him for a year. The trial included lurid testimony of how he drank, danced and played cards with his bodyguard before drugging and raping him on a carpet at State House in the 1980s.
Banana was released from prison in 2001 after serving eight months.
