Free Republic

<p>JOHANNESBURG - In 1963, lawyer George Bizos saved anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela from the gallows, and Mr. Mandela went on to become president of South Africa. Forty years later, he is defending Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on a capital charge of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe.</p>

A British farmer who stood up to Robert Mugabe and was beaten, abducted and finally had his house burnt down has travelled to Washington to ask the Obama administration to put pressure on the Zimbabwe government before it seizes the last remaining white farms. Ben Freeth and his wife Laura with their children Anna, Phillip and Josh. Ben Freeth, who moved to Zimbabwe from Kent, joined his father-in-law Mike Campbell in taking Mugabe to an international court to stop the farm seizures. Their secret footage of the campaign of intimidation launched against them will form part of a film to...

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 23 — After a year of hearings and depositions, lawyers for Zimbabwe's government and its main political opposition will begin closing arguments on Tuesday in Harare, the capital, in a curious treason trial. The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, is charged with plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. The evidence, a videotape in which Mr. Tsvangirai is seen relishing the prospect of power in a post-Mugabe era, is said by the government to be unimpeachable. The authors of the videotape, however, are anything but. One is Alexandre Legault, an American who disappeared last...

HARARE, ZIMBABWE - The protest was scheduled for 10 a.m., but at the appointed hour not a single demonstrator was in sight. It was like any other weekday morning on a busy Harare street, bustling with hawkers and beggars, shoppers and businessmen. Suddenly, 15 men materialized from the crowd, pulling creased signs from beneath their shirts. For a minute or so, they silently held their antigovernment placards aloft. Then as quickly as they appeared, they melted back into street, the yellow cardboard littering the ground the only evidence that any protest had occurred. Almost a year after Zimbabwe's disputed presidential...

Tsvangirai says he is being framed Lawyers defending Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on treason charges have accused the key prosecution witness of being a serial fraudster. They say that Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben-Menashe video-taped a meeting with Mr Tsvangirai as part of a government plot to stifle the opposition. Mr Tsvangirai and two colleagues from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) pleaded not guilty to treason charges when the trial began on Monday. Mr Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence officer, says the three contracted him to assassinate President Robert Mugabe before last year's elections. Mr Mugabe won but...

Zimbabwe's main opposition party has enlisted the help of an international public-affairs consultancy firm for a campaign aimed at forcing the government of President Robert Mugabe to restore democracy by calling for fresh presidential elections this year. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), lead by Morgan Tsvangirai, who is currently facing treason charges, has employed public-relations giant Chelgate, headquartered in London and with associated offices in Europe and North America, to manage the "Save Zimbabwe" campaign. The campaign--which will include letter writing, media publicity work, and lobbying of Zimbabwe's main trading partners in Africa and around the world--aims to send...

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabweans voted on Monday in the capital Harare after a High Court judge ordered a third day of voting in the country's most bitterly-contested presidential election of President Robert Mugabe's 22 years in power. Witnesses saw voting resume shortly after 7 a.m. at polling stations in Harare's Warren Park, Highlands and Mabvuku townships. State radio said the voting would be extended only in Harare and nearby Chitungwiza settlement, the two places cited by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in its plea to the High Court for an extension. It was not clear whether counting would...