Citing procedural and technical difficulties, the Archbishop of Central Africa, the Most Rev. Bernard Malango, has dismissed charges of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy brought against the Bishop of Harare, the Rt. Rev. Nolbert Kunonga.

A close ally of Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe, Bishop Kunonga was brought before the tribunal Aug. 23 to respond to a 38-count ecclesiastical complaint which includes charges of heresy and inciting murder. The trial proceedings were halted Aug. 25 after the presiding judge withdrew.

Harare’s state-controlled newspaper, The Herald, published an extract of a Dec. 19 letter to the bishops of the province that it claims was written by Archbishop Malango.

The letter states that the prosecutor in the ecclesiastical trial “decided to ignore a clear order of the provincial court to furnish further and better particulars to the court. We shall appoint another prosecutor to conduct any future prosecution should the need arise. But as far as the case against Bishop Nolbert Kunonga is concerned, the matter is closed and cannot be revived.”

Supporters of Bishop Kunonga claimed the charges were racially motivated. However, white parishioners brought only three of the 38 counts against the controversial bishop. In 2003, the State Department banned Bishop Kunonga from entering the United States for complicity in the crimes and human rights abuses of the Mugabe regime.

A native of Zimbabwe, Bishop Kunonga was educated at the universities of Zimbabwe and Capetown and ordained in 1978. Bishop Kunonga enrolled at Cambridge University in 1989, and later moved to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., earning a Master of Theological Studies and a Doctorate in Church History in 1995.

Bishop Kunonga taught at the Unification Theological Seminary in Barrytown, N. Y., a school affiliated with the ministry of the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, before he returned to Zimbabwe. In 2001, he was elected Bishop of Harare in an election allegedly manipulated by the Zimbabwe secret police.

Bishop Kunonga was unavailable for comment at press time.

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