Harare | Friday
ZIMBABWEAN police arrested the nation’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, in a pre-dawn raid on his home Friday, and then released him a few hours later.
The arrest came in the increasingly tense run-up to a general election, and as President Robert Mugabe, whose supporters have been blamed for widespread violence against opposition party members, was due to open the congress of his own party.
Learnmore Jongwe, representative for Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the party leader’s arrest was ostensibly due to a walkie-talkie radio that police found in possession of three of his security guards during an earlier raid on Thursday.
“The walkie-talkie does not need a license. It can be bought from any supermarket,” Jongwe said.
Police arrested Tsvangirai at 4:38 a.m. at his home in Harare’s suburbs.
Three truckloads of armed police had made an overnight search of Tsvangirai’s home on Thursday and arrested three of his security guards.
Police had taken the walkie-talkies from the security guards on Thursday, and returned in the pre-dawn raid on Friday to arrest Tsvangirai.
The arrest came as Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party was preparing for the official opening of its congress in the western resort town of Victoria Falls, ahead of the presidential elections next March.
Tsvangirai has posed the most potent threat ever to Mugabe’s 21 years in power.
Government has tried to convict Tsvangirai under colonial-era laws that were initially designed to prosecute the nationalists now in power.
The Supreme Court last month threw out charges of terrorism against Tsvangirai, saying the law under which he was charged was unconstitutional.
A conviction against the opposition leader could have ended in life imprisonment and prevented him from contesting next March’s election. – AFP
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