Mugabe 'paid Israeli spy to frame opposition leader'

A former Israeli intelligence officer has earned more than US$450,000 (£290,000) from President Robert Mugabe, partly as a reward for framing the Zimbabwean leader's main political opponent, officials in the government revealed yesterday.

Mr Mugabe's chief political foe, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), faces hanging or life in jail if convicted of high treason over an alleged plot to kill President Mugabe. He is to appear in court to answer the charges next month.

The Zimbabwe government is using grainy video footage of a meeting Ari Ben-Menashe held with Mr Tsvangirai in Montreal as the basis of its evidence against the opposition leader.

Mr Tsvangirai was shown in the video saying what sounded like incriminating statements about "eliminating" Mr Mugabe. The opposition leader denies the charges, claiming that the video footage was carefully edited and manipulated by Mr Ben-Menashe to frame him and two of his party officials who attended the meeting.

The controversial Israeli operative is being investigated by Scotland Yard for allegedly trying to sell false information on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, casting fresh doubt over the credibility of the allegations against Mr Tsvangirai.

Canadian police have dropped their own investigation for lack of evidence that Mr Tsvangirai plotted in Canada to eliminate Mr Mugabe.

According to well-placed Zimbabwean government officials, Mr Mugabe authorised $450,000 as payment for Mr Ben-Menashe for his work in recording the video and for agreeing to be the state's key witness in the case against Mr Tsvangirai.

About $200,000 of the total was for Mr Ben-Menashe to market Zimbabwe abroad through his Canadian-based consultancy firm, Dickens and Madson.

Mr Ben-Menashe was also to be paid an extra $400 000 for his marketing contract by the end of this year, they said.

Mr Ben–Menashe, called a "delusional and chronic liar" by the Jerusalem Post, has travelled to Zimbabwe twice this year and has met Mr Mugabe on both occasions. His travel expenses were paid for by the Zimbabwe government.

The sources did not want to reveal details of how Mr Ben-Menashe was paid as this would "expose" and "harm" certain people. It is, however, understood that Mr Ben-Menashe's payments were all handled by Mr Mugabe's spy agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation.

The officials interviewed yesterday accused Mr Ben- Menashe of "milking" the Zimbabwe government yet "doing nothing" to market the country abroad as promised.

"Apart from providing the video with Morgan [Tsvangirai] he has not implemented any campaigns he promised to improve Zimbabwe's image abroad," said one source.

Another source said officials were concerned about Mr Ben-Menashe continuing to earn more money for work he was not doing.

There are fears that Mr Mugabe's courts could convict Mr Tsvangirai on the basis of the videotape, notwithstanding the questionable credibility of the former Mossad spy. Mr Ben-Menashe cold not be reached for comment yesterday.