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An Odd Trial for Treason Is Winding Up in Zimbabwe
February 24, 2004
By MICHAEL WINES
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'�tat 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/international/africa/24ZIMB.html?ex=1078655522&ei=1&en=8656d3f28fcbd576
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