Harare — Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, and defeated presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been charged formally with treason. He is accused of involvement in an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.
Tsvangirai surrendered voluntarily to the central police station in Harare on Wednesday. He was later charged with high treason in the magistrate's court, with another senior colleague, Renson Gasela, the shadow agriculture minister of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Both have denied the charge.
Treason carries a maximum sentence of the death penalty in Zimbabwe.
The case, which comes to court at the end of April, rests on alleged evidence of a plot to kill Mugabe, broadcast on Australian television in February. A video tape, purporting to show a meeting between Tsvangirai and a number of Canadian consultants, is supposed to show the Zimbabwean opposition leader talking about eliminating' Mugabe.
Tsvangirai and his colleagues have rejected the allegations. Though Tsvangirai acknowledged that it was indeed him in the video, he said he had been framed in a set-up and had nothing to do with any plot. Before the March 9-11 presidential poll, the security agencies called the opposition leaders in for questioning, and made it clear that Tsvangirai would be charged with treason after the election.
The MDC's secretary-general, Welshman Ncube, was charged with treason in court last week, on the same day the results of the controversial presidential ballot were released, giving Mugabe a further six years in power.
Tsvangirai was released on bail of Z$1.5million (US$27,800), which he paid. He must come up with an additional Z$3.5 million (US$55,600) within 24 hours, to remain at liberty. Gasela was given bail of 500,000 Zimbabwe dollars. The two have been remanded until April 30 and have been asked to surrender travel documents and passports, and to report to the police once a week.
After the court hearing, Tsvangirai's attorneys told journalists that the move to charge their clients was totally unnecessary and further harassment of MDC leaders by the authorities.
Coming as it did just a day after Zimbabwe was suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth, the lawyers said the formal treason charges were a knee-jerk reaction by Mugabe's government to that decision. The Commonwealth suspension followed a damning report on the conduct of the elections in Zimbabwe by its large observer team.
The current Commonwealth chairman, Australia's prime minister, John Howard, made the announcement in London on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he expressed concern about the treason charges against Tsvangirai. "I'm disturbed about the news concerning the opposition leader in Zimbabwe. To my way of thinking, and I think to the way of thinking of the whole Commonwealth, any notion of prosecution of the opposition leader in Zimbabwe is quite inimical to the prospects of national reconciliation."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
State television announced on Wednesday night that Tsvangirai was arrested as he tried to "flee the country". The government has denied that it is pursuing a political agenda with the treason case.
Mugabe's information minister, Jonathan Moyo, said: "The allegations of plotting to assassinate a head of state are very serious, very serious. Britain takes them seriously. We are not a banana republic. We will take them very seriously."
Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and the Nigerian leader, Olusegun Obasanjo, were in Zimbabwe on Monday for separate talks with Mugabe and Tsvangirai in a bid to find a solution to the political impasse in the country.
Mbeki, Obasanjo and Howard make up a troika set up by the Commonwealth to review the situation and conduct of the elections in Zimbabwe. Announcing Zimbabwe's suspension from the organization on Tuesday, Howard added that the Commonwealth would work tirelessly to help the leadership resolve its political differences and take the country forward.
Wednesday's developments in Zimbabwe appear to have put paid to those mediation efforts, with Tsvangirai and other senior MDC leaders now facing a possible death sentence if they are convicted of treason.
Observers say Mugabe has decided to act decisively and swiftly to rein in the opposition which has rejected the results of the election and called for a rerun of the presidential poll.
