Leak reveals Mugabe has terminal cancer

Tyrant Robert Mugabe has terminal cancer and has been warned he can’t expect to live beyond 2013, leaked US embassy cables show.

Mr Mugabe, 87, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and told by his doctors in 2008 that he would be dead in “three to five years,” according to the latest WikiLeaks documents.

Gideon Gono, Mr Mugabe’s personal banker, revealed the extent of the president’s health problems in a private meeting with former US ambassador to Harare James McGee in June 2008 – days before the despot clawed his way to a fraudulent election victory.

The allegations will throw Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party into turmoil, but if true, confirm persistent rumours that the former guerrilla leader is suffering from serious health problems. Mr Mugabe and his wife Grace have made at least five trips to Asia this year for medical treatment. Presidential spokesman George Charamba has maintained that his boss has cataract problems.

“President Robert Mugabe has prostate cancer that has metastasised and, according to doctors, will cause his death in three to five years,” the central bank chief is alleged to have told Mr McGee.

“Mugabe’s doctor … recommended he cut back on his activities,” Mr Gono, 51, is reported to have said.

The bank chief is a close ally of Mr Mugabe. During the last decade of crisis he fuelled inflation by printing worthless Zimbabwe banknotes in ever-increasing denominations and earned himself the dislike of many in the business and civil sector by raiding foreign bank accounts.

Sightings of Mr Mugabe’s motorcade outside a private medical facility in Harare have fuelled rumours his health is worsening, as has Zanu-PF’s insistence on bringing forward the date of the next elections. This weekend Mr Mugabe defied regional negotiators by insisting polls must be held by March. That’s despite the fact that under the terms of a power-sharing deal between him and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, he is not supposed to declare the date on his own.

The MDC maintains polls can’t be held before May and may even need to be pushed back to 2013 because of growing intimidation.

“We cannot continue to have this dilly-dallying,” Mr Mugabe told Zanu-PF’s consultative assembly. “Once I announce the date everyone will follow.”

Analysts say Mr Mugabe is determined to die in power to avoid prosecution at the International Criminal Court and to make sure Zanu-PF alone picks a successor to him. The strongest contender to do so, former army general Solomon Mujuru, was killed in a mysterious house fire last month.