Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was distressed to learn her son Mark had been arrested in South Africa and charged with funding a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea but was confident he would be found innocent, her spokesperson said on Thursday.
”She is obviously distressed about the fact her son appears to be in some difficulty,” the spokesperson told Channel 4 television.
”She is very confident about the South African legal process and she is sure he will be cleared and named innocent at the end of it.”
As the apparent plot to overthrow the president of Equatorial Guinea continued to unravel, the elite Scorpions police unit said it had arrested Thatcher after learning that he had put his house on the market, arranged to sell four of his cars, found boarding school places in the US for his two children and bought his family plane tickets to the US.
When officers arrived at his home in the upmarket Constantia suburb of Cape Town at 7am on Wednesday, they found the Thatchers’ suitcases packed and in the hall. The house had been placed on the market for R22-million.
Further details of the charges against Thatcher emerged on Thursday. According to police, they have evidence that he invested $271 000 to fund the logistics of the coup attempt. Sipho Ngwema, spokesperson for the Scorpions, said they were confident they had evidence against Thatcher that will stand up in court. ”We have evidence that Thatcher has been financing the plot against Equatorial Guinea. We found information when we searched his residence that is going to assist us in the case.”
Thatcher (51) who denies involvement, is under effective house arrest for allegedly helping to fund the coup attempt.
Lawyers in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, said extradition proceedings had started against Thatcher. ”There has been an initial expression of interest from the government of Equatorial Guinea to South Africa,” Lucie Bourthoumieux, a lawyer representing the central African country, told Reuters.
State prosecutors in Equatorial Guinea, where 14 suspected foreign mercenaries are on trial for plotting a coup, have demanded the death penalty for one of the men, South African Nick du Toit. Thatcher could in theory also face the death penalty if extradited and found guilty.
However, Makhosini Nkosi, a spokesperson for South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority, said he did not expect Thatcher to be extradited. ”South Africa is opposed to the death penalty and we wouldn’t extradite someone to a country where he would face the danger of the death penalty,” he said.
The alleged leader of the plot, Simon Mann, an Old Etonian and former SAS officer, has been in jail in Zimbabwe since March, along with 69 other men. They were arrested on the tarmac at Harare airport in Zimbabwe after landing to pick up a small arsenal allegedly to be used to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
By Thursday night three different explanations had emerged from the Thatcher camp for Thatcher’s decision to leave South Africa. Friends in London said he had decided to move back to the United States months ago, hinting that it was a move designed to save his marriage to Texas millionaire Diane Burgdorf.
Meanwhile one of his lawyers in South Africa said the family were ”downsizing” to a smaller home in Cape Town because the children were going to boarding school in America where the Thatchers would be spending more time.
But on Thursday night his supporters offered a more sinister explanation. Channel 4 News reported claims, first made last month, that Thatcher had received anonymous threats over his alleged links to the coup plotters.
Thatcher was first interviewed about the allegations more than two weeks ago, after agreeing to a meeting with the Scorpions in Pretoria. ”It was just a normal interrogation,” his friend said.
Meanwhile the number of businessmen and establishment figures involved in the coup plot was widening. Jeffrey Archer, who was dragged into the controversy after $134 000 (£74 000) was deposited into Mann’s bank account in the name of JH Archer four days before the coup attempt, was at the Olympics in Athens. He referred inquiries to his lawyers in London. They said he had never met, spoken to, or communicated in any way with Mann, but the statement stopped short of denying he had paid the money into Mann’s company account.
New allegations also emerged about the role of Greg Wales, a British businessman and friend of Mann. He was named in a writ issued in the high court in London by the government of Equatorial Guinea. He was also identified as a conspirator by Du Toit. Ashley Jacobs, a South African security consultant, told The Guardian that Wales employed him to conduct an intelligence survey in Equatorial Guinea.
”I now know, of course, it was for a coup,” he said. ”I am very glad I didn’t go to Equatorial Guinea because I would be locked up too. Mr Wales asked me to conduct a security and intelligence survey of the harbours in Equatorial Guinea. He also wanted intelligence on the politics of President Obiang’s regime.”
Wales said that the allegations against him were ”very good fun but unadjacent to the truth”.
Meetings
On Thursday night, Channel 4 News reported claims by Christine Gordon, a journalist friend of Wales, that he had attended more than 20 meetings with Thatcher, Mann and others. Wales later released a statement admitting he had meetings with Mann and Thatcher about various business deals involving Equatorial Guinea, but probably not as many as 20.
Another pivotal figure in the alleged coup plot is James Kershaw, a South African accountant who has been alleged to be the coup’s ”paymaster”. He is named by Mann in a note smuggled out of prison appealing to his friends and family for help. Bank records for Mann’s company Logo Ltd identify Kershaw as managing the company’s finances. He was unavailable for comment on Thursday.
Mann also named other alleged potential investors in the smuggled note. As well as Thatcher — referred to as ”Scratcher” — they include an Italian businessman and socialite, Gianfranco Cicogna, who Mann claimed had promised $200 000. Cicogna was unavailable for comment.
Another businessman linked to the allegations is Gary Hersham, the founder of an exclusive estate agents in Mayfair and St John’s Wood, London. In his prison statement in March, Mann said that before the coup plans got underway, he had gone on a business trip to Gabon with Hersham who later introduced him to Ely Calil, the British businessman who is alleged to be one of the financiers behind the deal — an allegation he strenuously denies.
Hersham was on holiday in Europe on Thursday and did not return calls. But he has said he had no knowledge of the coup plot. – Guardian Unlimited Â