Zimbabwe opposition leader's home searched for weapons

None were found in the search, said opposition spokesman William Bango.

Under sweeping security laws, police also refused to authorise a meeting Tsvangirai had been scheduled to address yesterday in the Bikita district in southern Zimbabwe, Bango said.

Another opposition meeting called by Tsvangirai in Hwedza district east of Harare on Tuesday was called off after police cited security concerns.

Police deny harassing Tsvangirai and say the opposition was asked to postpone the Hwedza meeting because a rally for the ruling party was scheduled nearby in the volatile district at the same time.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said officers raided Tsvangirai’s home on suspicion he was hiding firearms said to have been used in a July 2 clash with ruling party supporters at Mvurwi, 60 miles north of Harare.

“We received information some of the firearms could have been hidden at his home,” Bvudzijena said.

The opposition insists Tsvangirai’s July 2 meeting with opposition politicians was disrupted by a group of about 200 ruling party militants who arrived in Mvurwi in a convoy of vehicles and were armed with axes, clubs, stones and tear gas.

Tsvangirai took shelter from a hail of stones in his armour-protected car and was not injured. Witnesses said two tear gas canisters were discharged.

Bango said Tsvangirai’s staff do not carry any firearms, grenades or tear gas.

“Mr Tsvangirai is surprised that he is being targeted for investigation when he was a victim of political violence,” Bango said.

Tsvangirai believes police are targeting him “to frustrate his political work” before parliamentary elections in March, Bango said.

Tsvangirai is still facing treason charges that he plotted the assassination of President Robert Mugabe in 2001.

The trial ended in February, with a verdict expected within six months. But on Thursday, the Harare High Court postponed the verdict indefinitely for administrative reasons, court officials said after two High Court assessors requested more time to study court transcripts.

Tsvangirai denies the charges, which carry a possible death sentence, and says the case was a political ploy against him.

Tsvangirai was charged with treason before 2002 presidential elections Mugabe narrowly won. The opposition leader surrendered his passport and was forced to report regularly to police while on bail.

The trial itself lasted more than eight months, the longest in Zimbabwe’s judicial history.

Opposition rallies have regularly been disrupted by rival party militants in four years of political and economic turmoil since Mugabe ordered the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.

Political violence since then has claimed the lives of more than 200 people and tens of thousands of opposition supporters, most of them black, have fled their homes.

The land seizures, coupled with economic mismanagement, corruption and erratic rains, have crippled the country’s agriculture-based economy. Zimbabwe faces soaring inflation and unemployment, along with acute shortages of food, hard currency, medicine, gasoline and other imports.