Harare - Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, the late notorious leader of Zimbabwe's self-styled war veterans, which has spearheaded a campaign of terror against white farmers, business and political opponents since February last year, became a born-again Christian in the days before his death two weeks ago.
The independent Standard newspaper on Sunday quoted a pastor of the evangelical Faith Ministries church as saying that the 51-year-old Polish-trained doctor whose surgery was used as a torture chamber, "confessed his sins to God and repented" during a prayer session with the pastor.
The pastor had asked not to be named, the newspaper said. It is not known what religion, if any, Hunzvi espoused before his conversion.
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"He accepted Jesus Christ as Lord before he died and he will go to heaven," the pastor said.
He had sacked his guards The conversion took place when Hunzvi was first admitted to hospital in the western city of Bulawayo, about a week before he died on June 4 in Harare of cerebral malaria.
The newspaper also quoted nurses from the United Bulawayo Hospitals as saying that Hunzvi had spent time with the pastor.
Reports around the time of his death also said that he had sacked his guards and would only take the medicines he had ordered for himself, because he feared people among his closest aides had "bewitched" him.
Hunzvi first came to notoriety in 1997 for his controversial involvement in a state fund meant to compensate war victims which forced Mugabe to pay out millions of dollars every month in gratuities to war veterans, a move seen as the start of the collapse of the country's economy.
Last year he launched the violent invasions of thousands of white-owned farms, in which 28 farm workers and eight farmers have been murdered, and was the leader of the ruling Zanu-PF party's campaign of bloody intimidation in the run up to parliamentary elections in June.
Mugabe declared him a national hero He took the violence into urban areas earlier this year in an offensive against private businesses in which hundreds of businessmen were abducted, assaulted and extorted of millions of dollars.
President Robert Mugabe declared him a national hero after he died and attended his funeral at a heroes memorial outside Harare. - Sapa
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