The government wanted me to languish in jail

Michael Sata

Mr Sata, who was a senior minister under former President Frederick Chiluba, was released after the three-week trial.

The opposition leader told the BBC that his arrest had been politically motivated and that President Levy Mwanawasa had instructed police to arrest him.

"I was innocent from the beginning, but the government wanted me to languish in jail," he said.

He said prison conditions were "dreadful", with prisoners surviving in cramped cells on rice and beans donated by the World Food Programme.

He added that he had been lucky and that food had been brought to him from his home.

Mr Sata pledged he would go on denouncing "all the wrongs" or else there would be "no Zambia left".

He was arrested a month ago and accused of stealing two government cars when he was a minister without porfolio in the administration of former President Frederick Chiluba.

He resigned from the government shortly before last December's controversial elections, when his party sidelined him in favour of Levy Mwanawasa.

He then broke away from the ruling Movement for Multi-party Democracy, the MMD, and formed his own Patriotic Front party.

'King Cobra'

The ruling party's Levy Mwanawasa narrowly won the presidential election last December, but opposition parties alleged fraud and ballot-rigging.

They have asked the courts to annul the election and order a re-run.

The BBC's Richard Lee in Lusaka says there has not been much sympathy for Mr Sata, who also contested last year's presidential elections.

He is known as King Cobra because of his fearsome reputation while national secretary of the MMD.