Zimbabwean Agriculture Minister Perence Shiri has died, the government said. He was 65.
Shiri died earlier on Wednesday, government spokesman George Charamba said by phone from the capital, Harare. He declined to say what the cause of death was.
Shiri was widely criticized by human-rights organizations for his part in masterminding Zimbabwe’s Gukurahundi massacres. The killings, which took place between 1982 and 1985, left as many as 20,000 dead in the country’s two Matabeleland provinces and the Midlands Province.
At the time, Shiri commanded the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, which is accused of mass executions and torture.
