Zimbabwe PM hurt, wife killed in crash

Morgan Tsvangirai and his wife, Susan, in October 2004. The prime minister's wife was killed in an auto accident yesterday. (Associated Press file)

HARARE, Zimbabwe - The prime minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, was hurt and his wife, Susan, was killed yesterday in a car crash about 45 miles south of the capital, according to officials of Tsvangirai's political party, the Movement for Democratic Change.

Tsvangirai was heading to his rural home for a Saturday rally when the crash occurred. From his hospital bed in Harare yesterday, he told one of his aides that a large truck driving on the other side of the road had come toward his Land Cruiser, the middle vehicle in a three-car convoy. The truck driver told police that he had fallen asleep at the wheel, said the aide, Dennis Murira, director of public affairs in the prime minister's office.

"What he told me was that the truck went for his car," Murira said. "That's how he put it."

The crash, coming less than a month after Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister in a tense and long-negotiated power-sharing government with his rival, President Robert Mugabe, stirred deep suspicions in his party, but most officials were careful to say not enough was known about the collision to make accusations of foul play.

Mugabe and his wife paid a condolence call to Tsvangirai at the hospital last night.

Eddie Cross, the policy coordinator for the Movement for Democratic Change, said that when he heard about the crash he phoned Hendrick O'Neill, a party member who is from the area where it occurred, to investigate.