Activist accused of plotting to oust Mugabe

A Zimbabwean human rights activist missing for three weeks was taken to court Wednesday, and state media said she was accused in a plot to overthrow President Robert Mugabe.

Late Wednesday, a judge ordered Jestina Mukoko and six other activists sent to a hospital under police guard to investigate allegations of torture, a human rights lawyer said.

The lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, said the seven would be brought to court again Monday to determine the next step, while another judge had ordered a second group of about two dozen detainees released unconditionally.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu added his voice to growing international calls on Mugabe to give up power. Asked during a BBC interview whether Mugabe should be removed by force, Tutu said there should “certainly be the threat of it.”

Mukoko’s court appearance came days after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai threatened to withdraw from talks on implementing a power-sharing deal with Mugabe unless at least 42 missing activists and opposition officials were released or charged.

Mukoko was taken from her home Dec. 3, the day activists held nationwide protests against the country’s deepening economic and health crises, and scores of others have disappeared in recent weeks.

Charging Mukoko, the respected head of a group known as the Zimbabwe Peace Project, in a plot already widely dismissed as a fabrication is a sign that Mugabe is not prepared to back down.

The Herald, the state-run daily, said Mukoko and the other activists with Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change would face charges of attempting to recruit fighters to overthrow Mugabe. The Herald quoted police as saying the MDC was training fighters in Botswana.

Zimbabwean officials have repeatedly made such accusations, which have been denied by Botswana and the MDC.