Editor hounded after 'rest in peace' error in Mnangagwa advert

Armed men claiming to be law and order police raided the home of Daily News editor Guthrie Munyuki at dawn on Friday after sister publication The Financial Gazette made an error in an advert which suggested President Emmerson Mnangagwa was dead.

Munyuki was not home at the time but the gunmen temporarily seized his wife and children's phones and examined their communications, a Daily News executive briefed on the raid said.

"Guthrie's brother also lives in the same neighbourhood in Westgate and he too was woken up by nearly a dozen men driving in a Toyota Fortuner and a Toyota Hilux. They demanded to know Guthrie's whereabouts," the executive said, speaking on condition they were not named.

When she left the house on her morning run in their neighbourhood, Munyuki's wife reported being trailed by some of the men, while others guarded the house.

Lawyer Alex Muchadehama was due to meet the police on Friday morning seeking clarity on the situation.

The Financial Gazette ran an advert on Thursday inserted by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces congratulating Mnangagwa on his 82nd birthday.

The advert concluded: "May his soul rest in eternal peace."

Big howler … the faulty birthday congratulatory message that got the editor into trouble

On Friday, the Daily News published an apology blaming the error on "lapses in the production process."

"We apologise profusely to President Mnangagwa, his family, his office, the government and the ZDF for the anguish and inconvenience that this inadvertent mistake caused," the paper said.

Advert mistakes are not uncommon in Zimbabwean newspapers as adverts are managed by advertising department staff who typically use old templates for regular advertisers, only tweaking the wording.

The timing could not have come at a worse time for the publication, just days after a military helicopter due to fly President Mnangagwa from Masvingo to Harare crashed while taking off to go and pick him up from Bikita.

Sources said paranoia among Mnangagwa aides and loyalists was "running rampant" so much so he is contemplating skipping the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York.