An Odd Trial for Treason Is Winding Up in Zimbabwe

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 23 — After a year of hearings and depositions, lawyers for Zimbabwe's government and its main political opposition will begin closing arguments on Tuesday in Harare, the capital, in a curious treason trial.

The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, is charged with plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. The evidence, a videotape in which Mr. Tsvangirai is seen relishing the prospect of power in a post-Mugabe era, is said by the government to be unimpeachable.

The authors of the videotape, however, are anything but. One is Alexandre Legault, an American who disappeared last year after being sought for extradition on charges that he masterminded a $13 million swindle in Florida.

The other is his business partner, Ari Ben-Menashe, a self-professed former Israeli intelligence agent who was described in a United States Congressional report in the 1980's as a talented liar.

Operating as Dickens & Madson, a Montreal-based consulting firm they had taken over, the two men struck a $100,000 deal with Mr. Tsvangirai's party in 2001 whose purpose is at the core of the trial.

Mr. Tsvangirai has insisted in court that his party hired the firm to lobby for its interests in the United States. His supporters say he was duped: that Dickens & Madson was running a sting operation for Mr. Mugabe's authoritarian government, seeking to entrap Mr. Tsvangirai.

Court records show that Dickens & Madson received $615,000 from Zimbabwe's government in the period surrounding their covert videotaping of Mr. Tsvangirai.

Mr. Ben-Menashe, in a telephone interview on Monday from Montreal, gave his version: "He tried to hire us to do a coup d'état and kill Mr. Mugabe. The tape speaks for itself."

What the five and a half hours of tape says depends in large part on defining the word "kill." In court, Mr. Tsvangirai's lawyer, George Bizos of Johannesburg, argued that Mr. Ben-Menashe ambiguously referred only to the "elimination" of Mr. Mugabe. Mr. Bizos also argued that up to 30 percent of the video tape is illegible or inaudible.

The most damning parts show Mr. Tsvangirai stating, "We can now definitely say that Mugabe is going to be eliminated," and speculating that afterward the government, the Movement for Democratic Change and the army should work together.

Mr. Tsvangirai's lawyers have built much of their defense on destroying the credibility of Mr. Ben-Menashe and Mr. Legault.

Before taking over Dickens & Madson, Mr. Ben-Menashe was a foreign agent for Mr. Legault's Montreal-based company, Carlington Shipping, a commodities broker. Numerous news reports said Carlington Sales was cited in many complaints about nondelivery of goods. Mr. Ben-Menashe said such charges were "garbage."

Mr. Legault was unavailable to testify. He fled Montreal in 2002, after a decade of fending off American demands for his extradition.

Zimbabwe -- New evidence in treason trial***When the trial last adjourned on 28 January, defence advocate George Bizos submitted these documents to the court, asking for them to be admitted as part of Tsvangirai's defence. State lawyers objected, and Judge Garwe said he would issue a ruling on the documents when the trial resumed yesterday. The documents absolutely shatter the already shaky evidence given by Ben Menashe.

The evidence Ben Menashe gave to the court when he appeared in person last year was that the assassination of Mugabe was discussed during EACH of three meetings at which both he and Tsvangirai were present, on their own and with others. The meetings took place in London on 22 October and 3 November 2001, and in Montreal on 4 December of that year.

When Tsvangirai was indicted, the State said there were audio tapes of the first two London meetings, and a video tape of the third Montreal meeting - all of which would show that an assassination plot was discussed in ALL the meetings. The audio tapes of the London meetings were never produced in court - the prosecutors said they were inaudible.

With difficulty, defence lawyers eventually forced the Attorney General to produce the transcripts of the audio tapes, which were full of gaps, and which showed no evidence of any assassination plot being discussed. Indeed the transcripts were entirely consistent with what Tsvangirai and his colleagues had said all along, namely that the meetings were to discuss a political consultancy agreement, not an assassination plot. ***

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