HARARE (AFP) - The leader of Zimbabwe's main opposition party Morgan Tsvangirai, who was accused of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe, was acquitted of treason by the High Court in Harare.
"The state has not been able to prove high treason beyond reasonable doubt," said Judge Paddington Garwe, pronouncing the eagerly awaited verdict.
Onlookers in the packed courtroom broke into thunderous applause as the verdict was pronounced, while a beaming Tsvangirai went over and hugged his lawyers before walking out of the courthouse hand-in-hand with his wife and driving away.
As he emerged from the court, jubilant supporters cheered and sang.
A guilty verdict could have sent Tsvangirai, whose Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has posed the most significant challenge to Mugabe's government over the last two decades, to the gallows.
Charges of high treason were brought against Tsvangirai based on a secretly filmed meeting between the opposition chief and Canadian-based political consultant Ari Ben Menashe in 2001, in which Tsvangirai allegedly sought help to organise Mugabe's "elimination" and mount a putsch.
In pronouncing the acquittal Friday, Garwe said the testimony of the government's star witness, Ben Menashe, was suspect and the main evidence -- the grainy videotape of the meeting with Tsvangirai -- did not prove that the opposition leader had asked for help to "eliminate" the country's long-time head of state.
"What is clear is that this evidence has to be treated with circumspection," Garwe said.
The judge said the videotape "does not give a complete picture of what was discussed", and that the picture was "hazy and the sound was broken."
"It is common cause that nowhere in the videotape is there a direct request made by the accused ... to assassinate the president and arrange a coup."
During his marathon trial, which began in February last year, Tsvangirai's defence claimed Menashe was hired by the government to frame the opposition leader ahead of presidential polls held in March 2002, which Tsvangirai lost to Mugabe.
Gibson Sibanda, vice-president of the MDC, was ecstatic at the opposition leader's acquittal.
"We hope this is the way forward for Zimbabwe, for a new beginning, for a new Zimbabwe," he said.
MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube added: "We have been vindicated -- it was always a political trial. The judiciary has maintained its independence in this case."
There was tight security across Harare earlier Friday as police and paramilitary forces patrolled areas around the High Court -- which is opposite key government buildings -- and put up roadblocks on streets leading to the court complex.
After the verdict, police fired teargas and used batons to disperse some 200 supporters who were celebrating outside the court and blocking traffic, an AFP reporter saw.
Tsvangirai faces another set of treason charges linked to mass anti-government protests he organised last year.
The former labour leader blames the government of Mugabe, in power for 24 years, for the economic and political problems currently crippling the southern African country.
Zimbabwe has in recent years seen living standards drop drastically as inflation soared to a record 600 percent late last year. Poverty affects up to 80 percent of the southern African country's 12 million people, and unemployment is hovering at around 70 percent.