Article

2004-02-24

After a year of hearings and depositions, lawyers for Zimbabweâs government and its main political opposition will begin closing arguments on Tuesday in Harare, the capital, in a curious treason trial. The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, is charged with plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. The evidence, a videotape in which Mr. Tsvangirai is seen relishing the prospect of power in a post-Mugabe era, is said by the government to be unimpeachable. The authors of the videotape, however, are anything but. One is Alexandre Legault, an American who disappeared last year after being sought for extradition on charges that he masterminded a $13 million swindle in Florida. The other is his business partner, Ari Ben-Menashe, a self-professed former Israeli intelligence agent who was described in a United States Congressional report in the 1980âs as a talented liar. Operating as Dickens & Madson, a Montreal-based consulting firm they had taken over, the two men struck a $100,000 deal with Mr. Tsvangiraiâs party in 2001 whose purpose is at the core of the trial.

Mr. Tsvangirai has insisted in court that his party hired the firm to lobby for its interests in the United States. His supporters say he was duped: that Dickens & Madson was running a sting operation for Mr. Mugabeâs authoritarian government, seeking to entrap Mr. Tsvangirai. Court records show that Dickens & Madson received $615,000 from Zimbabweâs government in the period surrounding their covert videotaping of Mr. Tsvangirai. What the five and a half hours of tape says depends in large part on defining the word "kill." In court, Mr. Tsvangiraiâs lawyer, George Bizos of Johannesburg, argued that Mr. Ben-Menashe ambiguously referred only to the "elimination" of Mr. Mugabe. Mr. Bizos also argued that up to 30 percent of the video tape is illegible or inaudible. The most damning parts show Mr. Tsvangirai stating, "We can now definitely say that Mugabe is going to be eliminated," and speculating that afterward the government, the Movement for Democratic Change and the army should work together.

Posted by Paul Moloney 2004-02-24 12:46:27 AM|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

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