Tension in Zimbabwe over treason verdict

The Zimbabwe government said extra security guards will be on duty to prevent any demonstrations during today’s treason verdict against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said restrictions will also be enforced outside the Harare High Court to limit access to the court precincts by anticipated crowds.

Judge Paddington Garwe is scheduled to deliver his long-awaited judgment at the downtown colonial-style courthouse.

Mohadi told reporters yesterday that authorities will not allow “political demonstrations” around the court.

Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change, meanwhile, described the yearlong treason trial that ended February 26 as political persecution of Tsvangirai, the party’s president.

“It is democracy on trial, not the president as an individual,” said opposition spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi.

The party called on supporters to converge on the High Court today and pledged its senior officials would “to stand in solidarity with the president on judgment day.”

Tsvangirai was charged with treason two weeks before he contested presidential polls narrowly won by President Robert Mugabe in March 2002.

The highly-charged case centred on a secretly recorded videotape of a meeting between Tsvangirai and Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben Menashe on December 4, 2001, in which the opposition leader allegedly sought help to kill Mugabe.

Tsvangirai denied the charges, insisting they were a government ploy to frame him and discredit the opposition ahead of the presidential poll.

George Bizos, a South African anti-apartheid attorney who first defended Nelson Mandela more than 40 years ago, defended Tsvangirai at the trial.

During the trial, state prosecutors withdrew allegations that Tsvangirai asked Ben Menashe’s help to “murder” or ”assassinate” Mugabe.

Tsvangirai said he mentioned Mugabe’s “elimination” on the grainy and barely audible 4 1/2 hour tape referring only to Mugabe’s possible defeat in the upcoming presidential polls and any subsequent change of government.

He said he sought Ben Menashe’s help in good faith to raise support and funds for the opposition in the US and Canada ahead of the polls.