Baton-wielding police beat back a crowd of lawmakers,...

Baton-wielding police beat back a crowd of lawmakers, diplomats and journalists trying to see the start of the treason trial of opposition leaders accused of plotting to murder President Robert Mugabe.
Later on the trial's opening day, a judge ruled that spectators should be admitted, but police said they did not hear that until hours afterward. A few journalists were arrested.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two senior party colleagues could face the death penalty if convicted.
Respected South African anti-apartheid attorney George Bizos, who represented Nelson Mandela nearly 40 years ago, is defending them. Bizos had asked for the trial to be adjourned until it was opened to the public.
Tsvangirai denies the accusations as a ``frame up.'' After he was formally charged February 25, 2002 - just weeks before the presidential election, which he lost - the US government said there was no convincing evidence against him and the others, and that the charges were further efforts to repress the opposition.
US Ambassador Joseph Sullivan, allowed in by security officials after being forced to wait in the crowd, said Washington was closely following the case.
``It has important implications for both the rule of law and democratic pluralism in Zimbabwe,'' he said.
Other Western diplomats were jostled and turned away and said they planned to protest to the foreign ministry.
The case centres on a secretly recorded video tape of a meeting between Tsvangirai, 50, and consultant Ari Ben Menashe, in which the opposition leader purportedly sought help to ``eliminate'' Mugabe, 78.
The other suspects - party secretary general Welshman Ncube, of Tsvangiriai's Movement for Democratic Change, and opposition leader Renson Gasela - are accused of helping arrange the December 4, 2001, meeting.
Ben Menashe claims to be a former Israeli intelligence officer and arms dealer and now heads a Canadian consulting firm.
Tsvangirai said the firm had offered to help the opposition clean up its image in the West. But Ben Menashe, who was secretly working for the government and is the main state witness, said Tsvangirai wanted him to kill Mugabe.