Zimbabwe mayor arrested over graft claims

The mayor of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, was arrested on Wednesday over corruption allegations over the allocation of public land.

Jacob Mafume, a member of the opposition MDC Alliance (MDC-A) party, spent the night at a police station in the city. He has not commented on the accusations.

Mr Mafume was elected as mayor in September.

MDC-A has accused the government of "weaponising the law against its members".

"We know that his real offence was winning the mayoral vote for the MDC Alliance... They want to remove him and replace him with a Zanu PF [ruling party] proxy," it said in a tweet.

The state-owned Herald newspaper quotes a police spokesperson as saying the police will give more information on the arrest on Thursday.

This article originally appeared on BBC News

Photo: New Zimbabwe