A key witness in the treason trial of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday hinted that the US government was involved in an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.
Tsvangirai and two senior officials from his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party are accused of plotting to kill Mugabe and overthrow the Zimbabwe government ahead of last year’s presidential elections.
The state’s case hinges on a videotape recording of a meeting Tsvangirai held in Montreal with political consultancy Dickens and Madson in December 2001, where the opposition leader is alleged to have requested Mugabe’s elimination.
The key state witness in the case, Ari Ben Menashe, the head of Dickens and Madson, told the court on Tuesday that a senior official from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Edward Simms, attended that meeting.
On Wednesday, the court heard a section of the four-and-a-half-hour tape in which Ben Menashe, gesturing towards Tsvangirai, said: ”Work has been done on your behalf to get stuff through congress, work has been done to get these guys (the CIA) on your side to do the elimination on your behalf.”
It is not clear from evidence so far provided whether Simms is part of the CIA, as Ben Menashe claims. The defence has said Simms was not the CIA deputy director for Africa.
Paul Nowack, a representative for the CIA in Washington, told AFP: ”We don’t comment on whether people work for us or not.”
The soundtrack on the black and white video shown in court was barely audible. On the first day of screening the court only watched the first half hour of the tape, repeatedly rewinding to listen again to parts that were hard to hear.
The MDC has said it never requested Dickens and Madson to eliminate Mugabe, and did not know the company was linked to the Zimbabwe government.
Indeed, on the section of the tape watched by the court on Tuesday, Tsvangirai was heard to say: ”The discussion was never about the elimination of Mugabe, it was about the election, and the post-election outcome.”
However, Ben Menashe has insisted in court that he had clear instructions from Tsvangirai to assassinate Mugabe and help stage a coup d’etat.
Jointly charged with Tsvangirai are the MDC’s secretary general, Welshman Ncube, and shadow agriculture minister, Renson Gasela.
All three deny the charges, which carry the death penalty on conviction.
They say they were set up by Dickens and Madson in a bid to sideline Tsvangirai, who has emerged as the most significant threat to Mugabe since he came to power 23 years ago.
Ben Menashe said he informed the Zimbabwean authorities of the opposition leader’s alleged request, and supplied them with a copy of the video.
The former Israeli intelligence agent Menashe said he had been to Zimbabwe several times before the alleged plot and knew some people in the government. – Sapa-AFP