Sydney | Thursday
A FORMER Israeli intelligence agent claimed to an Australian news program late on Wednesday that Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe.
Australia’s government-funded Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) screened the allegation on its Dateline program, with accompanying footage showing the former agent, Ari Ben-Menashe, discussing Mugabe’s ”elimination”, allegedly with Tsvangirai.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Wednesday denied the charge.
The footage was secretly filmed during a meeting that allegedly took place between Ben-Menashe and Tsvangirai in Montreal in December, SBS said.
The Israeli, described as a principal of Montreal-based political consultants Dickens and Madsen, later told the Australian newspaper: ”He (Tsvangirai) tried to hire us to kill Mugabe”.
”It was an illegal matter, so we immediately reported it to the authorities.”
The initial approach to Ben-Menashe to kill Mugabe was allegedly made by an associate of Tsvangirai in London in October for a fee of $500 000.
The Australian also reported that Ben-Menashe has been described in the Israeli press as a ”notorious chronic liar”.
The newspaper added that Ben-Menashe had reportedly been paid by Zimbabwean authorities to gather information about Tsvangirai’s alleged complicity in the assassination plot.
In a statement the MDC said it believed the video was not genuine.
”He is a democratic politician fully committed to achieving peaceful change via the ballot box in the forthcoming presidential election, scheduled for March 9-10.”
The MDC said its leader believed the programme was part of a smear campaign by the ruling Zanu-PF regime.
”It is a crude smear campaign against me. They are ridiculous charges and there is no truth to them.”
It also mentioned that the MDC was suspicious of the role played by Dickens & Madson, a Montreal-based political consultancy. ”They were hired by the MDC, and it is revealed in the course of the programme that they now work for the Mugabe regime.
”The false allegation that Mr Tsvangirai discussed assassination seems to arise from Dickens & Madson.”
The party said Tsvangirai did take part in a meeting with Dickens & Madson representatives in Montreal in December as stated in the programme.
”He came to suspect that he was being secretly video taped, even as the meeting went on. The meeting was held to discuss the general political situation in Zimbabwe there was no plot to assassinate Mugabe.”
”This is the latest in a series of dirty tricks orchestrated against Tsvangirai and the MDC, which have thankfully been discounted by the international community.
”Other examples have included that the MDC is planning a war in Zimbabwe and that the British government ordered that MDC legislator David Coltart be made vice president should the MDC win power, that the MDC is behind supposed biological warfare against Zanu-PF and that the MDC is behind South Africa’s biggest bank robbery,” the party said. – AFP, Sapa
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