ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's treason trial resumed yesterday with a senior police officer saying a recording of a conversation allegedly implicating opposition leaders in a plot to kill the president was useless as evidence against them.
Opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai and two of his aides could be executed if they are convicted of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe.
Defence lawyer George Bizos yesterday accused Police Chief Supt Moses Magandi of suppressing a police transcript of the tape because what could be heard was so innocuous it would have helped Tsvangirai's defence.
"It was left out because we couldn't make sense of it, not because we thought it might exonerate the accused," Magandi replied.
Ari Ben Menashe, a Canadian-based political consultant, has accused the officials from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of hiring him to help them kill Mugabe.
Tsvangirai, MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube and MDC official Renson Gasela deny the charges and say Ben Menashe was working with Mugabe's government to frame them.
The resumption of the trial came a week after three African presidents met Mugabe and Tsvangirai in an effort to end Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic crisis. The opposition has refused to recognise Mugabe's election and drop a court challenge to it. - (PA)