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SaudPIUS NCUBE, a prominent Zimbabwean archbishop and critic of the country's president, Robert Mugabe, has resigned two months after being implicated in a sex scandal that he says is an "attack" engineered by the government.
The move comes after Zimbabwean state-run media published photos in July allegedly showing Ncube in bed with a woman who was married to one of his parishioners.
However Ncube insisted he had "not been silenced by the crude machinations of a wicked regime".
Lawyers for Ncube, the head of the Catholic church in the Bulawayo diocese, said the photos were an attempt to discredit him.
In a statement the 60-yearold cleric said his decision to resign was aimed at protecting the church from further "attacks" and enable him to challenge the adultery charges privately.
"I remain a Catholic bishop in Zimbabwe and will continue to speak out on the issues that sadly become more acute by the day," the bishop said in the statement released in Bulawayo, the country's second-largest city.
"I have not been silenced by the crude machinations of a wicked regime."
The Vatican confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the resignation. Ncube, who had been archbishop since 1998, has been a regular critic of the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe and called for international pressure on the president.
He has accused Mugabe of human rights violations and has called for him to step down.
He has also urged Zimbabweans to demonstrate in the streets against the government as the country experiences rampant inflation and its worst economic crisis since independence.
But he has kept a lower profile since the pictures allegedly of him appeared in the state-owned Herald newspaper and film footage was broadcast by state media.
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