Nine opposition activists who were to be arraigned on charges of attempted murder and illegal weapons possession all required medical attention for injuries sustained since their arrests, doctors said.
One of the activists collapsed in the courthouse, and the judge agreed to lawyers’ appeals to adjourn Saturday’s hearing and allow them to get medical treatment, opposition officials told reporters at the Harare magistrates’ court.
Doctors and staff at private medical facilities where the detainees were taken under police guard said the nine — who were detained on Tuesday and Wednesday — appeared to have been assaulted while in custody.
The medical staff asked not to be identified, saying they feared reprisals.
Attorneys for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were seeking a further court ruling ordering the activists’ immediate release.
The nine activists were to have been charged with attempted murder in alleged petrol bombings and possessing illegal weapons and explosives, but the hearing was adjourned before they could be arraigned.
Lawyers believe they could face additional charges relating to terrorism that carry much harsher sentences of life imprisonment or the death penalty under the nation’s sweeping security laws.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party, meanwhile, endorsed President Robert Mugabe on Friday as its candidate in next year’s presidential elections, shrugging off international criticism of the clampdown on opposition activists and papering over internal divisions about the country’s economic meltdown.
The 145-member decision-making body also agreed to bring forward parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2010, by two years to coincide with the presidential poll.
Next year’s poll would allow Mugabe to say in power until 2013, when he is nearly 90.
He has vowed to go ahead with the elections even if the opposition does not contest.
The main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai earlier this week said his party will boycott next year’s poll unless democratic reforms made it free and fair, declaring the opposition would never ”go into an election that is predetermined”.
The endorsement by the central committee of the Zanu-PF party of Mugabe — the only leader since independence from Britain in 1980 — came after an emergency Southern African summit that gave its public backing to the 83-year-old leader. Thursday’s summit in Tanzania ended with the appointment of South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in Zimbabwe’s crisis and a decision ”to promote dialogue of the parties in Zimbabwe”.
Mbeki has been criticised at home and abroad for his insistence on a quiet diplomacy approach to Zimbabwe. Previous attempts by South Africa since 2002 to bring Mugabe and the opposition to the negotiating table have been short-lived and there are doubts it will be revived after Mugabe’s endorsement on Friday and new assaults on activists.
However, Mbeki expressed his optimism that his mediation role would succeed, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio reported.
”We are always optimistic,” Mbeki said in an interview. ”I think everybody in Zimbabwe recognises the fact that there are problems, that these problems need to be solved and the fact that it needs a united response of the people of Zimbabwe.
”So the best we can do is to encourage them to engage one another … and hopefully they will find one another and produce a solution that the country needs,” he said.
Mbeki was also forthright in rejecting attempts by either side to set preconditions.
The South African president also brushed aside claims that the region was not taking firm enough action to stop a further deterioration of the situation in Zimbabwe.
”Whatever happens in Zimbabwe impacts immediately on all of us in the region,” Mbeki said. ”I don’t know why anybody should want to assume that we are less concerned about Zimbabwe than somebody who is thousands of kilometers away when we have to carry the burden of the problem.”
Tsvangirai and several other top colleagues are recuperating from injuries inflicted in beatings when police crushed a prayer meeting in Harare on March 11 that the government said was a banned demonstration.
Mugabe acknowledged that police used violent methods against Tsvangirai and other opposition supporters and killed at least one activist. Referring to injuries suffered by at least 40 others in custody, Mugabe warned perpetrators of unrest they would be ”bashed” again if violence continued.
Speaking in the local Shona language, Mugabe said on Friday that Tsvangirai ”asked for it”.
”Tsvangirai stop it now,” he said, in reference to accusations that the opposition is to blame for a wave of unrest and petrol bomb attacks, allegations the opposition has repeatedly denied. – Sapa-AP