Bruised, defiant Tsvangirai vows to fight Mugabe

By Mike Saburi

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's main opposition leader vowed on Friday to keep fighting to end President Robert Mugabe's 27-year rule, saying he would not be intimidated by government threats or police brutality.

"One thing is certain ... that freedom is not cheap," Morgan Tsvangirai told Reuters in an interview at his home shortly after he was released from hospital, where he was treated for injuries he said resulted from a beating in police custody.

"It's only when people lose freedom that they realise how precious the freedom is ... the struggle continues," the 55-year-old MDC leader said as he sat on a couch, his wrist bandaged and a blue beret covering a head wound.

Tsvangirai was among scores of anti-Mugabe activists arrested in an aborted protest on Sunday in the capital Harare. He and other detainees said they were savagely beaten by police after their arrests.

Images of a badly bruised and limping Tsvangirai entering hospital earlier this week fuelled international outrage and threats by the United States and other nations to tighten sanctions against Mugabe and other senior Zimbabwean officials.

Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist who has challenged Mugabe in several elections, said he was feeling better but had been told to relax by doctors. He did not mention reports that he had suffered a fractured skull.

His comments echoed the defiant position he took in an article published in Britain's Independent newspaper on Friday, in which he said "democratic change" was in sight in Zimbabwe and his spirit would not be broken by violence.

"They (police) brutalised my flesh. But they will never break my spirit. I will soldier on until Zimbabwe is free," he wrote, saying he suffered an "orgy of heavy beatings" in custody.  Continued...