A Robert Mugabe supporter who is said to use a newspaper column to attack Britain and the West is receiving tens of thousands of pounds a year of taxpayers’ money.

Today the Ministry of Justice said it was investigating the affair as a “matter of urgency”.

Peter Mavunga, 54, allegedly uses his column in the pro-Mugabe Harare Herald newspaper to attack the Zimbabwean dictator’s opponents and rant against the UK and the West.

Yet it was reported today that Mr Mavunga earns £25,000 from British taxpayers as a court probation officer for the Ministry of Justice.

One UK-based opposition activist said: “It’s rich that he criticises the British Government yet is happy to make a living working for them.”

Anti-Mugabe campaigner Dumi Tutani, 38, who fled to London in 2001, added: “Mavunga is putting down the country that offered him sanctuary. He knows he can say what he likes because this is a democracy.

“If he’s such a big fan of Mugabe’s, why doesn’t he return to Zimbabwe to live?”

Mr Mavaunga is thought to have come to Britain to study journalism in the 1970s.

In his column Mr Mavunga is said to have claimed this year’s rigged polls - in which Government mobs killed dozens of opposition workers - were “held in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity”.

Last week, Mr Mavunga, who lives in Newham, East London, allegedly accused one woman of lying about her torture to win UK asylum and said: “It was the sort of story that helped shape and reinforce attitudes of people in Britain.”

In April, he reportedly branded opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC “liars and hypocrites” and added: “They’ve become so used to lying that it’s part of their vocabulary.”

Mr Mavunga declined to comment when challenged by the Daily Mirror about this role at the Harare Herald.

A spokesman for the Probation Service said today: “These views have been expressed in an individual capacity; these are not the views of London Probation. We are looking into this as a matter of urgency.”

Mr Tsvangirai won March’s elections but Mr Mugabe demanded a re-run, which he won unopposed after violence forced his rival to quit.

(Source)