(18 Dec 1997) English/Nat
Veteran Zimbabwean opposition leader the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole has been sentenced to two years in jail for plotting to kill onetime ally President Robert Mugabe.
Judge Esmael Chatikobo said Sithole conspired with two supporters to ambush Mugabe's motorcade in western Harare.
After the sentence was passed, Sithole was immediately freed on bail to appeal against the conviction over the 1995 assassination attempt.
Sithole says he has been framed by Mugabe's secret police.
The Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole was sentenced at the Zimbabwe High Court in Harare on Thursday.
Judge Esmael Chatikobo said Sithole conspired with two supporters to ambush Mugabe's motorcade on a highway in 1995.
He told the court that the amateurish assassination attempt always looked like failing adding the assassination plot had been a "mind boggling" product of a senile mind.
He said Sithole's opposition group had been easily infiltrated by agents of the Central Intelligence Organisation which monitored the plot being hatched "under their noses".
The Congregationalist church minister was also given a five-year suspended sentence for other crimes, including the recruiting of young men for an armed wing of his party and for possessing weapons.
Speaking before the sentencing, Sithole claimed the charges against him were politically motivated - aimed at destroying his Zimbabwe African National Union Ndonga party.
He believes the government is trying to silence him in the Harare parliament, where he is one of only three opposition lawmakers.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"So, the only conclusion I come to is that this is a state arrangement to have me locked in. You will be interested to know that in so far as this government goes it is dying to put me out of action. If they could kill me they would do that."
SUPER CAPTION: Ndabaningi Sithole
Sithole remained defiant, in spite of comments about his health.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Some say, well you are ageing. True! I am ageing, but it is the body that is ageing not the brain."
SUPER CAPTION: Ndabaningi Sithole
The judge said that although Sithole was found guilty of treason, the futility of his actions and his ailing health called for justice tempered with mercy.
He was freed immediately after sentencing, to lodge an appeal against the conviction, although no date was set down for the appeal.
Officials said it could take up to two years before a new hearing is held.
Sithole founded Mugabe's ruling party in 1963 but later lost the leadership to Mugabe.
In 1969, he was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for attempting to assassinate colonial-era Prime Minister Ian Smith.
He was tried and convicted five times for crimes linked to political activism before the former British colony of Rhodesia became independent Zimbabwe in 1980.
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