You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Africa: Subsaharan
Merc gets 10 yrs for coup attempt
2004-08-28
EFL.
Simon Mann, the leader of the failed Equatorial Guinea coup attempt that led to the arrest of Sir Mark Thatcher, was last night facing up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of attempting to possess dangerous weapons by a court in Zimbabwe.

The Old Etonian and former SAS officer, who was arrested on the tarmac at Harare airport in March along with a plane full of mercenaries while waiting for a delivery of weapons, will be sentenced next month. The latest twist in the saga comes at the end of an extraordinary week in which the attempted coup in a forgotten but oil rich corner of West Africa has sucked in several establishment figures and a rightwing coterie of businessmen, including Sir Mark, oil millionaire Ely Calil and Lord Archer.

A magistrate sitting at a makeshift courthouse in the Harare maximum security Chikurubi prison, found 66 of the mercenaries, all travelling on South African passports, not guilty of the weapons offences. Charges had already been dropped against another three. Most of the men held in Zimbabwe had already pleaded guilty last month to lesser charges of violating Zimbabwe's immigration and civil aviation laws, carrying a maximum penalty of two years in jail and a fine.

Prosecutors said Equatorial Guinea's Spanish-based opposition leader, Severo Moto, offered the group $1.8m and oil rights to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
Cheap at twice the price.
Mann admitted trying to order assault rifles, grenades, anti-tank rocket launchers and other weapons from Zimbabwe Defence Industries, but magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe said prosecutors failed to prove their case against the 64 other men arrested when their ageing Boeing 727 landed at Harare International Airport on March 7, and two already in Zimbabwe with Mann at the time. He also acquitted Mann of an additional charge of taking possession of the weapons. The men, including Mann, maintain they were en route to jobs protecting a mining operation in wartorn eastern Congo.

Fifteen other suspected mercenaries, including South African businessman Nick du Toit who has admitted to giving logistical support to the coup attempt, are on trial in Equatorial Guinea, Africa's third-largest oil producer. They face the death penalty if convicted.

Yesterday Sir Mark, who denies any involvement in the coup attempt, remained under house arrest at his home in Constantia, the upmarket Cape Town suburb where Mann also has a home. The South African government said yesterday it was considering a request from Equatorial Guinea for investigators to be allowed to travel to Cape Town to interview Sir Mark over the coup attempt. However there has been no request for extradition, something that is thought highly unlikely because the countries have no extradition treaty and because Equatorial Guinea practises the death penalty.

His spokesman in London, Lord Bell, said he been dragged into the Equatorial Guinea affair because of "guilt by association". "Mark Thatcher and Simon Mann were friends, nobody has ever denied that," he said. "But it doesn't follow that because you are friends with someone you are necessarily involved in what they are doing."
Posted by:Steve White

00:00