State lawyers on Thursday closed their case in the marathon treason trial of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two senior party officials, while defence lawyers said they would apply to have the charges dismissed.
The close of the state’s case, which claims Tsvangirai and his two co-accused in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party plotted to kill President Robert Mugabe, comes four months after the trial began.
One of the lawyers defending the MDC trio, Chris Andersen, told the court that the defence team would be applying to have the three discharged, because he said the state had not proved its case against them.
”It is our intention to make an application to have the three accused persons discharged,” Andersen said before Judge Paddington Garwe.
Garwe postponed the matter to July 7, when he said the court would deal with the application for discharge.
Earlier the court heard the last of the state’s 11 witnesses testify.
Edward Chinhoyi, a technician with the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, had been called to give his views on the videotape that is said to incriminate Tsvangirai in a plot to ”eliminate” Mugabe.
The tape was made on December 4 2001, three months ahead of a disputed presidential election that pitted Tsvangirai against Mugabe, and which Mugabe won.
It was made using hidden surveillance cameras in the offices of Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben Menashe, whom the MDC say they approached to do promotional work for them in North America.
On the tape, which Ben Menashe gave to the Zimbabwe authorities, Tsvangirai is alleged to have requested for the consultant’s help in ”eliminating” Mugabe and organising a coup to topple his government.
MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube and senior party official Renson Gasela were also said to be part of the plot. If convicted all three could face the death penalty.
Chinhoyi, an expert in video recording and editing, testified that the picture on the tape was ”hazy”, making it difficult to tell who was speaking.
But he said in his view it had not been tampered with after its initial recording.
Defence lawyer Andersen argued that the poor picture was ”intended”, and that the tape may have been expertly edited as part of what the defence claims was ”a trapping exercise” by the government to sideline Tsvangirai ahead of the 2002 poll.
”A poor picture could not be made by mistake,” he said.
The three MDC officials deny the charges against them, and say they were the victims of a government set-up. – Sapa-AFP