MONTREAL, Feb 16: Canadian police said on Saturday they had opened an investigation into an alleged plot to kill Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, described earlier this week by a former Israeli intelligence agent who owns a consulting firm here.

Ari Ben Menashe alleged on an Australian news show Wednesday that the leader of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, was plotting to assassinate Mugabe ahead

of next month’s presidential vote.

Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has alerted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) about the allegations, ministry spokesman Carl Schwenger said.

“I can tell you that we are investigating” the matter, RCMP spokesman Paul Marsh said. He declined to give more details.

Tsvangirai, who will seek to end Mugabe’s 22-year grip on power in the March polls, has rejected claims he plotted to kill the president, saying he was set up by government agents.

Zimbabwe state television on Friday showed clips of a meeting between Tsvangirai and Ben Menashe, secretly filmed in Canada in December, at which the opposition leader allegedly referred to the “elimination” of Mugabe.

The images were poor and grainy. One of the voices on the tape sounded similar to Tsvangirai’s.—AFP