The High Court in Zimbabwe has slashed by three years the jail term imposed by a lower court on the alleged mastermind behind a plot to stage a coup in oil rich Equatorial Guinea, his lawyer said on Thursday.
Briton Simon Mann was on September 10 sentenced to seven years in prison by a magistrate after he was convicted of trying to illegally buy weapons that prosecutors argued were to be used to topple long-time President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Malabo.
”The jail term was reduced from seven to four years during a review in the High Court this week,” said lawyer Jonathan Samkange.
A former member of Britain’s crack Special Air Services (SAS) force, Mann along with 67 other suspected mercenaries were arrested on March 7 last year at Harare international airport en route to Equatorial Guinea.
The seven-year jail term which was in September described by the sentencing magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe as ”moderate” but enough to ”send a clear message to others who harbour similar intentions” was cut by High Court judge Alfas Chitakunye to four years.
Mann, who founded the now defunct mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes, is also a friend and neighbour of Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister who is to plead guilty to charges of bankrolling the alleged coup plot.
Thatcher was expected to plead guilty in a Cape Town court Thursday to charges of contravening South Africa’s Foreign Military Assistance Act, which bars mercenary activitiy outside the country’s borders.
Two pilots who flew the plane that stopped over in Harare in a bid to pick up arms were sentenced to 16 months in jail, while the rest of the men were each slapped with a one-year jail term.
Samkange said he has already filed papers to seek a review of the sentences of the rest of the men incarcerated at the country’s maximum security prison Chikurubi.
The hearing date is yet to be set. – Sapa-AFP