Zimbabwe minister Shiri, who helped plot Robert Mugabe ouster dies

July 29, 2020
| Report Focus News
FILE PHOTO: Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa congratulates Perence Shiri, the new minister of Land, Agriculture and Land Resettlement are seen after the swearing in of cabinet ministers at State House in Harare, Zimbabwe December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo/File Photo

Harare- Zimbabwe Agriculture Minister Air Chief Marshal (Retired) Perrence Shiri, has died, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Wednesday.

Shiri, who commanded the air force for 25 years until he joined the government in 2017 died in the early hours of Wednesday, he was 64.

“Shiri was a true patriot, who devoted his life to the liberation, independence and service of his country,” Mnangagwa said in a statement. He did not say how Shiri died.

Media reports suggest that he succumbed to complications from the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, which has infected 2,817 and killed 40 in Zimbabwe.

Shiri commanded the army’s Fifth Brigade unit that carried out the 1980s massacres of thousands of civilians in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland region as the government sought to quell an insurgency.