Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told a court hearing his trial on Tuesday that a Canada-based political consultant had tried to convince him of the need to assassinate Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, but denied he had in any way agreed to such a plot.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, is charged with plotting to assassinate Mugabe in a case that carries the death penalty if he is convicted.
The charges hinge on a grainy and barely audible four-and-a-half-hour video, secretly recorded in 2001 at consultant Ari Ben Menashe’s Montreal offices, in which Tsvangirai is accused of calling for Mugabe’s ”elimination.”
Under cross examination in his long running trial, Tsvangirai said Ben Menashe spoke of the elimination of Mugabe by ”sinister” means that could cause the leader harm.
”I was really upset. The meeting was getting so tense. Mr Ben Menashe was pushing this agenda. It was my feeling that there was a sinister meaning,” Tsvangirai told Judge Paddington Garwe.
The early part of the meeting on December 4 in 2001 focused on Mugabe’s exclusion from presidential elections in 2002 through a retirement deal or his possible defeat at the polls, Tsvangirai said.
Ben Menashe had promised to lobby for international support for a new government.
Tsvangirai said Ben Menashe then changed track, calling for the physical removal of Mugabe, and demanded his response.
Cross examined by state attorney Bharat Patel, Tsvangirai said it was clear Ben Menashe was proposing the violent removal of Mugabe.
Patel asked: ”The sinister removal of President Mugabe was on the table. Did you think about it?”
”Yes,” replied Tsvangirai.
But he said he did not think Mugabe’s murder was an option to remove him from office. ”I discussed the principle of Mugabe going, not the method,” Tsvangirai said.
Tsvangirai was charged two weeks before he ran against Mugabe in 2002 presidential elections. Mugabe narrowly won re-election in the vote, which independent observers said was swayed by intimidation and vote rigging.
Defence attorneys argue Tsvangirai, who is free on bail, was entrapped by Ben Menashe who already was working as a consultant for the Zimbabwe government when the secret video was recorded.
Ben Menashe, who claims to be a former Israeli intelligence agent, was acquitted by a US federal jury in 1990 of illegally arranging a $36-million deal to sell US-made military cargo planes to Iran in exchange for the release of four American hostages.
Israel denies he did intelligence work for the country but says he served briefly as a junior clerk in its civil service.
Ben Menashe visited Zimbabwe last week to offer to sell the government oil from Azerbaijan, government officials confirmed.
Zimbabwe is suffering acute fuel shortages. – Sapa-AP