The club president faced charges of banditry, terrorism, robbery and kidnapping and was later jailed.
To be sure, the rebel forces are often no kinder, and banditry is rife.
But he added that it was "hard to distinguish banditry in this region from the jihadi activity".
The state has also charged seven other activists with banditry, which carries the death penalty in Zimbabwe.
But elsewhere, impoverished militia groups appear to be reverting to old ways - turning to banditry and extortion.
Only those bent on pure banditry still deny that western investment and technology have a lot to offer.
UNITA's leaders say their men will be forced to desert the camps and revert to armed banditry to survive.
Chinese lorry-drivers complain of highway banditry, as gangs jump on to the back of slow-moving lorries and pull off goods.
Shanzhai, which literally means "mountain fortress" and implies banditry and lack of state control, refers to China's vast array of name-brand knockoffs.
In recent weeks, activists have mounted an online campaign accusing Ahmed Afash, a prominent commander based in Aleppo, of banditry and kidnapping.
Banditry is a charge that carries a death sentence in Zimbabwe.
Now in Afghanistan, we are in the quintessential world of banditry and tribalism, a political culture that has abhorred and resisted central authority.
The real puzzle is to explain the exceptions: why crony capitalism has flourished in parts of fast-growing Asia or Kremlin banditry in Russia.
But Estonians worry about lawlessness, even banditry, spilling over the border.
Armed and aimless, some former soldiers have decided that the way to get ahead in Mr Bremer's Iraq is to turn to banditry, extortion and sabotage.
Mr Bennett, who has been nominated as deputy minister for agriculture, is due to stand trial on 19 October on charges of terrorism, insurgency, sabotage and banditry.
As The Economist went to press, Mr Bennett was still in prison, though the treason charge had been replaced by ones of insurgency, banditry, sabotage and terrorism.
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Today, many people say that local power struggles, a poor economic climate and elements of basic banditry are fueling the simmering insurgency in Dagestan, apart from grander Islamist or separatist aims.
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Mr Kabila, in charge of a vast country, can do little to suppress the Mai Mai or the other groups who use the chaos in the Kivu provinces to turn to banditry.
Odiambho Joseph, from the BBC's Swahili service, says banditry has been on the increase recently and in the last year several Kenyan policemen have been attacked and killed by suspected Islamist militants from Somalia.
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Some are simply the result of large-scale banditry.
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Britain has trained many Sierra Leonean soldiers in the past but most of them, finding no decent government or state to serve, either mounted a coup, joined the rebels or simply used their training for banditry.
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