famous South African Rivonia Trial in 1964, headed Morgan Tsvangirai's defence team. October 2000 arrest Tsvangirai was arrested after the government alleged that he had threatened President Robert Mugabe. The Movement for Democratic Change leader had told 40,000 supporters at a rally in Harare that if Mr Mugabe did not want to step down before the next elections scheduled for 2002 "we will remove you violently." However, Tsvangirai said that he was giving a warning to President Mugabe to consider history. "There is a long line of dictators who have refused to go peacefully – and the people have removed them violently," he said. The courts dismissed the charges. June 2003 arrest In May 2003 Tsvangirai was arrested on a Friday afternoon shortly after giving a press conference, the government alleged he had incited violence. In the press conference he had said: From Monday, 2 June, up to today, 6 June, Mugabe was not in charge of this country. He was busy marshaling his forces of repression against the sovereign will of the people of Zimbabwe. However, even in the context of the brutalities inflicted upon them, the people's spirit of resistance was not broken. The sound of gunfire will never silence their demand for change and freedom. March 2007 arrest and beating On 11 March 2007 a day after his 55th birthday, Tsvangirai was arrested on his way to a prayer rally in the Harare township of Highfield. His wife was allowed to see him in prison, after which she reported that he had been heavily tortured by police, resulting in deep gashes on his head and a badly swollen eye. The event garnered an international outcry. He was allegedly tortured by a Special Forces of Zimbabwe unit based at the army's Cranborne Barracks on 12 March 2007 after being arrested and held at Machipisa Police Station in the Highfield suburb of Harare. "He was in bad shape, he was swollen very badly. He was bandaged on the head. You couldn't distinguish between the head and the face and he could not see properly," Innocent Chagonda, an attorney, told Reuters after visiting a Harare police station where Tsvangirai was being held. A Zimbabwean freelance cameraman, Edward Chikombo, smuggled television pictures of Morgan Tsvangirai's injuries following the beating. Chikombo was later abducted from his home in the Glenview township outside Harare. His body was discovered the next weekend near the