Mr Gillespie was said to have been taking a stroll along the riverside on a spring afternoon to look at the daffodils when a man stepped in front of him.
Mr Mugabe did stray from his usual targets - former British Prime Minister Tony Blair still a major preoccupation - to touch on the "momentous" but unfinished events ofthe Arab Spring - an awkward subject, you might think, for a man who has been in power for more than three decades.