Johannesburg/Harare - The magistrate who this week freed on bail Roy Bennett, the detained deputy minister-designate in Zimbabwe's three-week-old coalition government, has himself been arrested by state agents, lawyers said Friday.

Police seized Livingstone Chipadza at his home on Thursday night in the eastern city of Mutare, where Bennett was held, said Trust Maanda of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.

Chipadza is still in custody and lawyers are not being allowed to see him. Police sources say he is going to face charges of criminal abuse of office.

The incident is the latest twist in the struggle for the release of Bennett, a white farmer and popular treasurer of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party.

Lawyers say state agents are deliberately intimidating the judicial officials to ensure Bennett stays in jail.

He was arrested on charges of banditry, sabotage, terrorism and insurgency on February 13 when the country's power-sharing cabinet was sworn in, and lawyers say president Robert Mugabe's security officials have been frustrating orders for his release.

A high court judge granted him bail 10 days ago and on Wednesday Chipadza signed a warrant of liberation for Bennett to be freed.

Prisons officials then refused to release him, and that night two senior prisons department officers seized Bennett's release papers from the commanding officer of Mutare prison and vanished, said Maanda.

Observers say Zimbabwe's judiciary has long suffered from political intimidation, with magistrates and judges harassed and arrested for delivering rulings unfavourable to the regime, while others have been paid off with farms, luxury cars and even plasma- screen televisions.

Bennett's continued detention is heightening the tension between the two bitterly opposed groups making up the power-sharing government.

On Thursday United States president Barack Obama extended sanctions targeted against key figures in Mugabes administration because of continued human rights abuses. (dpa)