According to a prison official of the Central Prison Service, in a statement to Lord Chitnis and Ms. Eileen Sudworth, the returning officers in the April elections achieved a 100% poll in a total of 19 prisons. Mobile polling booths toured the prisons, and those who voted included convicted prisoners serving sentences of less than six months, persons detained under the Emergency Powers Regulations and martial law detainees. It is not known whether long term convicted political prisoners such as those in Khami Maximum Security Prison were required to vote.
At the beginning of April 1979 the names of 1633 people serving prison sentences for political offences were known to IDAF. The full total may well be considerably higher. Information recently received from inside Khami Maximum Security Prison reveals that there are 282 prisoners belonging to ZAPU (Patriotic Front) in both A & B Halls of the prison. Just inside the inner wall an additional 101 ZAPU prisoners are held in six newly built corrugated iron cells. 185 ZAPU prisoners are held in Grey Street Prison, Bulawayo, and 800 in Khami Medium Security Prison. (It is possible that some of these could be detainees). This gives 1,368 members of ZAPU in custody in Bulawayo alone. An inmate writes: "We want our problem to be given a special consideration ... There is no letter (which anyone) writes as an individual to you. I always have a hand, we are one ... Keep us informed, we are in terrible darkness here."
