A Zimbabwe court began hearing arguments on Monday for the dropping of treason charges against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, accused of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe.
The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and two other senior officials — who face the death penalty if convicted — deny the charges, which hinge on secret recordings made of meetings held in late 2001.
Defense lawyer George Bizos said that while a conviction ”would be convenient to the state,” the court should not allow itself to be used.
He said the two key state witnesses, Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben Menashe and his associate, Tara Thomas, were ”untruthful”.
Ben Menashe and Thomas were present at meetings in London and Montreal in November and December 2001 where Tsvangirai allegedly asked them to assassinate Mugabe ahead of March 2002 presidential elections.
A secretly recorded audiotape of the London meeting is almost inaudible, while a videotape of the Montreal meeting is hazy, with large sections of it inaudible.
Bizos said under Zimbabwean law treason must be proved by two witnesses.
”Two bad witnesses of questionable credibility cannot corroborate one another,” he argued before Judge Paddington Garwe.
He also said the charges against Tsvangirai’s co-accused, MDC Secretary General Welshman Ncube and shadow agriculture minister Renson Gasela, should be dropped because Ben Menashe was the only witness against them.
Bizos accused the state of issuing certificates in order to block enquiries by the defence into important aspects of the case, as well as destroying vital evidence to arrange a ”whitewash”. – Sapa-AFP