Two of the 70 suspected mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe on suspicion of plotting a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea were released on Friday after they were acquitted of all charges.
Prosecutors claimed Harry Carlse and Lourens Horn, both South Africans, were hired to inspect a consignment of weapons intended to be used in the alleged plot. But Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe said the state failed to prove its case against the men.
They were released on Friday evening and taken to a private residence in the capital, Harare, where they were showering and enjoying a meal, defence attorney Alwyn Griebenow said.
They planned to return to South Africa on the first available flight, but would not speak to journalists until they had been questioned by authorities there, Griebenow said.
He said he expected the men to be arrested and charged under South Africa’s Foreign Military Assistance Act once they arrive back home.
Mann convicted
The alleged leader of the plot, former British special forces operative Simon Mann, was convicted on Friday after he admitted trying to buy weapons from Zimbabwe’s state arms manufacturer.
Mann, a bespectacled former member of Britain’s crack Special Air Service military unit, was alleged to have masterminded the suspected plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.
He was arrested along with 69 other alleged mercenaries on March 7 when their plane stopped off in Harare to pick up weapons. The accused said the weapons were to have been used to guard a diamond mine in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mann, wearing a khaki prison shirt and shorts, showed no emotion when magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe read out the verdict on Friday at a makeshift court in the maximum security Chikurubi prison.
“The action by the accused amounts at the most to attempting to purchase firearms. The accused is found guilty,” said Guvamombe. He said sentences would be handed down on September 10.
The state has asked for a jail sentence of up to 10 years in prison for Mann, who set up mercenary firm Executive Outcomes, which operated from Pretoria in South Africa.
Mann is also linked to accused coup financier Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Tears and phone calls
Guvamombe acquitted 66 other suspected mercenaries of involvement in the coup.
When the judge announced their acquittal of the 66 men, applause broke out from the small group of relatives who attended the hearing.
There were tears and a flurry of excited cellphone calls outside the prison as they broke the news to family members back home in South Africa.
“I think it was a fantastic day,” said Harry’s brother Johnny Carlse. “This has been the best news in six months. I can’t believe it.”
Namibian Alexandra Ngombe said she was overcome with relief when she heard the verdict after travelling to Zimbabwe 10 times to visit her detained husband Kauhitwa.
“It’s been very stressful,” said the mother of three. “I was worried but now he’s coming back home.”
Guvamombe said the testimony given by some of the men about how they were recruited in South Africa was “suspicious” but said state prosecutors had failed to prove the men had been involved in the purchase of firearms.
Some of the men — who included Angolan, Nambian and Congolese nationals travelling on South African passports — said during the trial they had been recruited via telephone in South Africa to work as security guards.
“The manner in which they were recruited arouses some suspicion. However the suspicion alone is not enough,” Guvamombe said.
“The state failed to discharge its onus by proving the accused persons guilty beyond reasonable doubt.”
Mann set up mercenary firm Executive Outcomes with Nick du Toit, a South African on trial in Equatorial Guinea over the alleged plot to oust Obiang, who himself came to power in a coup in 1979.
The trial in Malabo opened on Monday with du Toit admitting to a “limited” role in a coup attempt, overseeing logistics.
The prosecution in Equatorial Guinea is seeking the death penalty for him.
The case took a new twist this week with the arrest in Cape Town of Mark Thatcher, who has been charged with bankrolling the alleged plot to topple the regime in Equatorial Guinea.
Thatcher has denied the charges but admitted that he is friends with Mann, who is his neighbour in the upmarket Cape Town suburb of Constantia. – Sapa-AFP, Sapa-AP
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