| p:abstract
| - Ari Ben-Menashe is the author of Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network, a book purporting to describe his involvement in Iran-Contra and other intelligence operations. An Iraqi Jew who was educated in Israel, he is a former Israeli government employee, and has said that he worked for the intelligence services. He has also said he was a "troubleshooter" for former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. He now runs Albury Grain Sales, a commodities brokerage registered in Montreal, Canada, where he lives. Ben-Menashe came to the attention of the international media in 2002, when he alleged that Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had asked him to help to "eliminate" President Robert Mugabe. Ben-Menashe produced a videotape of conversations between himself and Tsvangirai in London, England, and Montreal, where the latter appeared to ask for Ben-Menashe's help as a political consultant. Unbeknownst to Tsvangirai, Ben-Menashe's Montreal consultancy firm at the time, Dickens and Madson, was working for Mugabe, and tapes of the ambiguous conversation were passed to the Zimbabwean authorities, who charged Tsvangirai with treason, which is punishable by death in that country. Tsvangarai was acquitted in 2004 when a court in Harare accepted he had not used the word "eliminate" to mean that he wanted Mugabe to be assassinated. Judge Paddington Garwe described Ben-Menashe, who was the prosecution's star witness, as "rude, unreliable, and contemptuous." The Jerusalem Post, quoting an "authoritative" source, wrote on March 27, 1990 that Ben-Menashe had not worked for the Israeli government in any capacity, and that the Israeli defense establishment had had "no contact" with him. Documents subsequently obtained by American journalists showed that Ben-Menashe had, in fact, worked for the External Relations Department of Israeli military intelligence from 1977-87, though his critics say he was a low-level translator. However, Moshe Hevrony clearly stated: Ben-Menashe worked directly under me... He had access to very, very sensitive material. Documents obtained in 2002 by Canadian journalists under Canada's freedom of information legislation indicate that Ben-Menashe has supplied consultancy services to the Canadian government. Time Magazine has called him a "spinner of tangled yarns." (en)
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