LONDON, May 17: A US correspondent for a British newspaper has been deported from Zimbabwe, despite a last-minute legal order ordering him to be produced before the country’s High Court, the journalist’s employers said on Saturday.

The Guardian’s reporter Andrew Meldrum was forced onto an Air Zimbabwe flight bound for London late Friday, a source at the paper told AFP.

Meldrum, a US citizen who has lived in Zimbabwe for 23 years, was served with a deportation order which accused him of being “an undesirable inhabitant” of Zimbabwe.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said in a statement: “Although we are extremely relieved that Andrew seems to be safe tonight, we are appalled by the complete disregard in which the immigration service holds the Zimbabwean High Court.

“Not only do today’s events sound the death knell for press freedom in Zimbabwe, they also show President Robert Mugabe’s government’s utter contempt for justice.”

Rusbridger called the deportation “a political act which should invite the strongest possible condemnation from the international community”.

He added: “The Zimbabwean authorities have been persecuting Andrew for the last 12 months and their clear determination to deport him can only be interpreted as a concerted effort to stifle any free press within the country.”

Meldrum’s lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, said: “This is a complete breakdown of the judicial system and the entire state machinery is involved. The rule of law has broken down in Zimbabwe.”

Last year Meldrum, 51, one of the first journalists to be prosecuted under sweeping new media laws, was acquitted by a Harare magistrate of allegations that he published false information about Zimbabwe.

At a meeting with immigration authorities on May 13, he was accused of breaking the terms of his residence permit by writing about the country’s political situation and his passport and residence permit were confiscated.—AFP