MDC leaders charged, youth brigades attacked

Zimbabwe police on Tuesday charged two senior opposition party officials with treason over an alleged plot to kill President Robert Mugabe, news reports said.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) secretary-general Welshman Ncube and the MDC's shadow minister of lands and agriculture, Renson Gasela, were charged and released after two hours of questioning.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was charged with treason on Monday in the same affair. He has denied any involvement in the alleged plot, and accused the government of trying to smear him ahead of the 9-10 March presidential election.

Ncube and Gasela were named as having attended an initial meeting in Britain last year at which the alleged plan to kill Mugabe was hatched, AFP reported.

The charges against Tsvangirai stem from a grainy videotape screened by Australian television on 13 February. The seemingly heavily edited film allegedly showed a former Israeli intelligence agent, Ari Ben Menashe, discussing a plot to "eliminate" Mugabe with the MDC leader.

There has been international concern that the charges against Tsvangirai are aimed at keeping him out of the presidential race. The United States and the European Union have already imposed targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his close associates following concern over the legitimacy of the poll.

"If Mr Tsvangirai is taken out of the election process altogether, then that will obviously generate a very strong international reaction," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer reportedly said. He added that the allegations against Tsvangirai were "without credibility".

Meanwhile, local residents in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo took the law into their own hands over the weekend and attacked pro-government youth brigades that they said had been harassing communities, news reports said.

Youth brigade members were forced to flee their base at a municipal hall in the suburb of Nketa on Saturday. Citizens, angered by an earlier assault on people at a local shopping centre, marched on the base, a Bulawayo journalist told IRIN.

On Sunday, alleged youth brigade cadres who stoned a pub in the suburb of Emakhandeni, were beaten up by patrons.

"Youth brigades have been a pain to the people of Zimbabwe and people have been afraid to retaliate, but now they are fed up," the journalist said. "People are saying that Matabeleland is an MDC stronghold, so we shouldn't allow ourselves to be harassed here."