At least nine women from Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were arrested on Tuesday after a demonstration near the court where their leader is on trial for treason, the party said.
Police blocked a group of about 50 women who joined a march to the court, situated opposite President Robert Mugabe’s offices in Harare, to protest at the trial which resumed on Monday after a six-week break.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the party’s secretary-general Welshman Ncube and lawmaker Renson Gasela are accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe ahead of last year’s presidential election. They deny the charges.
The protesting women wore T-shirts bearing pictures of the three MDC officials and the slogan ”We are behind you all the way”.
At the hearing Tuesday, chief defence lawyer George Bizos accused a senior police officer of telling the key state witness Ari Ben Menashe to suppress evidence about an alleged attempt to involve Zimbabwean troops fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a plot to kill Mugabe.
But assistant police commissioner Moses Magande, who led the team probing the alleged assassination plot, rejected the allegations. ”It was never raised. I don’t remember any issue about the DRC being raised in the (investigating) committee,” he told the court, saying no investigations were made outside Zimbabwe except Canada.
The evidence against Tsvangirai and his two colleagues hinges on a grainy videotape made available to Zimbabwe authorities by Ben Menashe, a political consultant based in Montreal.
The defence has dismissed the tape, which was also handed over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as inaudible. – Sapa-AFP