84 MDC supporters held over petrol bombs

84 MDC supporters held over petrol bombs

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By Staff Reporter

DOZENS of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters arrested in Zimbabwe's capital Harare at the weekend were still in custody Sunday, a spokesman said.

Around 150 of the more than 200 people arrested at the party's Harare headquarters on Saturday as they were holding a meeting were released around midnight, but 84 remain in custody said Nelson Chamisa, the MDC spokesman.

Those released were harassed, threatened and beaten by the police, he said.

Police meanwhile Sunday said the raid on the MDC headquarters was intended to find suspects behind a string of petrol bomb attacks on police stations, passenger trains and stores owned by ruling party officials in April and March.

"Some suspects arrested in connection with recent petrol bombs have given us leads we are following up," police spokesman Andrew Phiri told the official Sunday Mail newspaper.

Thirty-two MDC supporters and officials, including Harare MP Paul Madzore and former journalist Luke Tamborinyoka, are still in custody two months after their arrest in connection with the attacks.

Chamisa dismissed the police accusations against his party as hogwash.

Instead, he accused agents of President Robert Mugabe's ruling party of having carried out the attacks in order to tarnish the opposition party's image.

"Those are trumped-up charges," he said.

The MDC says hundreds of its activists and officials have been arrested, detained and tortured by police since the start of a state-orchestrated crackdown against the opposition in February.

Mugabe's government came under the international spotlight for its arrest and torture of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and dozens of others at a foiled prayer rally in Harare in March. - dpa
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