Deposed vice-president who has seized power in Zimbabwe is a London-educated former spymaster who orchestrated 1980s massacre of 20,000 opponents

Mnangagwa (pictured right with Mugabe), 75, has had a long and varied political career, leading at one point the justice, defence, housing and finance ministries as well as being the speaker of the lower house and spymaster. But he is a notorious and much-feared figure in Zimbabwe, long accused of orchestrating a vicious crackdown on opponents in Matabeleland in the 1980s with the help of the dreaded North Korean-trained Fifth Army brigade. Thousands of civilians were killed during the Gukurahundi campaign (pictured left is a row of bodies dug up in Matabeleland after the massacre), but Mnangagwa has always denied involvement. He met Mugabe while imprisoned in Salisbury (later renamed Harare) in the 1960s. He narrowly avoided being executed after he was arrested in 1965 (pictured inset: Zimbabweans sitting in front of Salibury prison in 1968 after a triple hanging of opponents of white minority rule).

Sources-mail online.