Questions on the vehicle had been put in writing at the registry’s request. One officer quickly found the details which he passed on to Nduku. After about 15 minutes, Nduku apologised and confessed he lacked the guts to divulge the details. “If it was the police officer investigating the matter – and only him seeking that information – we would give it to him,” said Nduku. The police refused to say anything new, preferring to stick to the standard: “We are investigating.” Assistant Commissioner Faustino Mazango, the acting officer commanding Harare, referred questions to Wayne Bvudzijena at Police General Headquarters. “Premature disclosure will affect the investigations,” said Bvudzijena. An officer in the law and order section said: “We don’t have anything new.” No arrests had been made by yesterday.

Sunday’s bombing of the newspaper was the second in nine months. The first was on Saturday, 22 April 2000 when a powerful bomb, aimed at the newspaper’s head office, destroyed an art gallery below the office of Geoffrey Nyarota, the Editor. Again, no arrests were made, except for an innocent South African journalist who was detained, harassed and later released when the charge became too wobbly to hold. Since then, the police, through Bvudzijena, have been reluctant to entertain questions related to that subject.

James Makwaza, a security guard at The Daily News printing factory in Lochnivar, Harare, said he saw the Mazda truck at about 1am before the press was bombed. The explosives went off between 1.30am and 1.45am, destroying the $100 million printing press. Stuart Mattinson, the chairman of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, publishers of The Daily News, said: “This cowardly act of destruction will not silence The Daily News. “If anything, it will stiffen the resolve of the staff at the paper and, indeed, every independent media organisation within Zimbabwe to ensure that every Zimbabwean has access to the truth,” he said.