On November 14 the Zimbabwe military lined the streets, wrestled control of the nation’s state TV, placed their own President under house arrest, and arrested members of the Government.

Claiming the intervention was a “bloodless takeover” of power, the military then spent several days in negotiation with the President before he was forced to resign.

Despite the “takeover”, last night a member of the country’s ruling Zanu-PF party bizarrely insisted on keeping up the pretence that there was no coup.

Speaking on BBC Newsnight, Xavier Zavare said: “The evidence of what we have seen is that the military have tried as much as they can with this intervention to let the government function and to make sure that the world understands that it is not a coup.”

The show’s guest went on to desperately try and defend his claim by suggesting the military were “just helping out a difficult situation”.

After the military takeover leading officers in the armed forces said that they were removing criminals from power.

However, they did not expand on who they were accusing of being criminals or what laws they had broken.

Xavier Zavare continued to defend the actions of the military stating that they would no longer get involved in Zimbabwe’s politics.

He added: “I don’t think they would want to be seen continuing being involved.

“I think they will just go back to the barracks and remain as professional as they’ve always been.”

However, the Zanu-PF man isn’t the only one who is still denying that a coup took place to remove Robert Mugabe from power.

Giving a press briefing earlier today the White House also refused to admit that a coup took place.

Ask on the topic several times White House spokeswoman Heather Nauert at first avoided answering questions on the military take over.

When pressed on the matter she said “I’m not going to take that bait” and refused to answer whether the US Government saw the issue as an illegal takeover.