The Daily Telegraph revealed in October that the South African subsidiary of DeLaval, a Swedish-based dairy giant, had sold a 32-cow-capacity milking parlour, two giant cooling tanks and consumables worth £300,000 to Gushungo Dairy Estate, which was seized from its white owner and is now part of Mrs Mugabe's assets.

Mrs Mugabe, 44, is on the European Union's list of members of her husband's regime who are subject to targeted sanctions. She is described as "engaged in activities that seriously undermine democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law".

DeLaval is part of the TetraLaval Group, which also owns Tetra Pak and is itself owned by the Rausing dynasty, who include some of Britain's wealthiest people.

Benoit Passard, DeLaval's spokesman at its headquarters in Sweden, said that Leon Lilje, the managing director of DeLaval South Africa, and Rykie Visser, its sales manager for sub-Saharan Africa, had both "decided to leave the company to pursue new challenges".

They were not sacked and he declined to go into details about their departure agreements. But he said: "This follows the internal investigation regarding the transactions between DeLaval South Africa and Gushungo Dairy Estate farm in Zimbabwe, which was ethically unacceptable and in breach of our code of business conduct - namely dealing with people on international sanction lists."

The sale may technically not have been a breach of the EU sanctions, he pointed out, as it only involved employees of the firm's South African subsidiary.

But he added: "However, there's no doubt that the transaction was ethically unacceptable."

Gushungo Dairy Estate used to be known as Foyle Farm, when it was white-owned and the most productive dairy in Zimbabwe, but industry figures said that the then owner was forced, by a campaign of violence, to sell it to the authorities for a knock-down price.

By The Daily Telegraph UK