Harare - Police have arrested an opposition parliamentarian in connection with an attack on Zimbabwe's only white female MP, according to reports.
Timothy Mubawu, an MP of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the Tafara and Mabvuku townships, handed himself in to police on Monday after police said they were looking for him, state television reported on Monday night.
Trudy Stevenson, a member of a breakaway faction of the MDC, was attacked last week and left with a head gash, broken arm and wrist bones and a fractured cheek bone.
The attack has been deeply damaging to the MDC faction led by former trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai, of which Mubawu is also a part.
Up to nine other MDC members have so far been arrested.
Stevenson says youths belonging to Tsvangirai's faction of the party assaulted her with stones and a machete on July 2 after she and colleagues had had a meeting in Mabvuku.
Stevenson left Tsvangirai's faction late last year, joining one now led by former student activist Arthur Mutambara.
According to the state-controlled Herald newspaper, her attackers escaped in a bakkie that belongs to Mubawu.
President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF, itself often accused of human rights violations, says the incident proves the MDC has always been a violent party.
But Tsvangirai's MDC says Zanu-PF is trying to make political capital out of the attack and has promised an independent inquiry. - Sapa-DPA