Zimbabwe: Opposition leader charged with treason

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been ordered to surrender his passport after being formally charged with treason.

The charge is in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.

The charge came as regional leaders tried to press Mr Mugabe to form a coalition government with the opposition in the wake of widely condemned presidential elections.

Mr Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change, has strongly denied the charges, calling them a government ploy to discredit him. Police had charged him with the same crime before the March 9-11 elections. But today he was formally charged in court and released on 1.5 million Zimbabwean dollars (£19,000) bail.

He was ordered to surrender his passport and the deeds to property worth 3 million Zimbabwean dollars (dlrs 54,000) and told to report to police every week.

The charges against Tsvangirai came a day after the Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies announced in London it had suspended Zimbabwe from the organisation's meetings for one year, citing the "high level of politically motivated" violence in the vote.

Mr Tsvangirai's lawyer, Eric Matinenga, said the opposition leader's arrest may have come in response to the Commonwealth decision.

"Maybe it is a typical knee-jerk reaction to events that unfolded in London yesterday," he said.

The charges against Mr Tsvangirai stemmed from several meetings he had with a Canadian consulting firm that was secretly working for the government. In a videotaped meeting, repeatedly broadcast on Zimbabwean state television, Mr Tsvangirai and the consultants discussed Mugabe's "elimination."

He denied plotting Mugabe's assassination and said he had only planned to hire the firm as lobbyists. He said the snippets of video shown on television had been taken out of context.