Ari Ben-Menashe ’s longtime business partner Alexander Legault has been arrested and deported to the United States to face criminal charges, including racketeering, conspiracy and fraud.

Ari Ben-Menashe is a former spy and arms dealer who maintains what he calls a “personal relationship” with President Robert Mugabe,he was once a key prosecution witness in the treason trial of MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai

In 2001, he connived with executives of his consultancy company and an Australian journalist to incriminate Morgan Tsvangirai, in a assassination plot two weeks before the 2002 presidential elections..

Ben-Menashe ’s key piece of evidence cited was a statement issued by their company Dickens and Madson which, said the firm in October had been contracted by Tsvangirai to kill Robert Mugabe and secretly filmed video of a meeting held in Montreal,Canada to discuss how to install Tsvangirai into power after the assassination.

Judge Paddington Garwe dismissed the case,”Nowhere in the videotape is there a request of Ari Ben-Menashe to assassinate Mugabe and stage a coup,” said Garwe.

Then Minister of Justice and current key negotiator in the power sharing talks, Patrick Chinamasa was outraged, saying Tsvangirai “has been wrongly acquitted.”

“There was enough evidence contained in the video and the transcript of the video to secure and justify a conviction in the case,” Chinamasa said.

Ben-Menashe’s business partner, Legault has been charged with fraud and the use of fictitious names in the past and according to court documents, Legault is alleged to have helped defraud the Egyptian government of US$7-million by participating in a bogus export scheme that involved frozen chickens.

In 1997 he filed a refugee claim but it was dismissed, a year earlier he had allegedly participated in a multi-million dollar scam that involved the brokering and financing of wholesale food transportation. The fraud was directed at elderly Florida residents and resulted in many more criminal charges laid against Mr. Legault, and others. His partner Ray Reynolds, was arrested and jailed for 22-years.

In the March 2002 election Tsvangirai polled 42% of the vote, despite blatant poll-rigging and intimidation by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party. All election observers agreed that in a fair election Tsvangirai would have defeated Mugabe.

Mugabe desperate to discredit and destroy Tsvangirai hired a Canadian “public relations” company run by Ari Ben-Menashe, for a fee of US$1 million, to lead Tsvangirai into a trap which would give the government a pretext to put him on trial.