A Zimbabwean court will this week hear an application by Equatorial Guinea to have the jailed British mastermind behind an alleged coup plot there three years ago extradited, his lawyer said on Monday.
Simon Mann has been in jail in Zimbabwe since 2004 after being convicted of trying to buy weapons as part of a bid to topple veteran President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, but the government in Malabo also wants to bring him to justice.
Mann’s lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, said that he would fight vigorously the extradition application at Thursday’s hearing before Harare Magistrate’s Court.
“There have been several requests to hand over Mann to the Equatorial Guinea authorities but the formal application is only being held this week,” said Samkange.
“We are going to oppose the application. We don’t believe he should be tried twice on the same charges.”
Mann was initially handed a seven-year term for the purchase of weapons that prosecutors said were to be used to topple Obiang Nguema, ruler of the oil-rich West African state since 1979. The sentence was later cut to four years.
The former Special Air Service commander and 61 other men were arrested when their plane landed at Harare International Airport in March 2004.
They were said to have been stopping off to pick up weapons en route to Malabo to join an advance team led by South African Nick du Toit, who was himself arrested and then sentenced to 34 years in prison in Malabo.
Most of the gang arrested with Mann were released from a Zimbabwean prison in 2005 and the Briton is due to be released in May.
The case made headlines worldwide following the arrest in Cape Town in August 2004 of Mark Thatcher, the wealthy son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who allegedly helped bankroll the coup bid.
Thatcher eventually pleaded guilty in a South African court to unwittingly helping to finance the alleged coup and was fined $510 000. — AFP