The Texan wife of Mark Thatcher, who is currently under house arrest in South Africa following accusations he helped finance a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea, arrived in Britain on Tuesday morning.
Diane Thatcher swept through London’s Heathrow airport surrounded by police and refused to say why she had left South Africa, or comment on reports that she would visit her mother-in-law, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Diane Thatcher and the couple’s two children, aged 15 and 11, who were travelling with her, are about to return to the United States where the children will go to school, Thatcher’s lawyer said in Cape Town.
”He has been incorrectly charged and we are working to clear that up, so you can’t compromise the children’s education over these allegations,” said lawyer Ron Wheeldon.
Mark Thatcher (51) a millionaire businessman, was arrested last week by South African police and is under house arrest at his Cape Town home. He has been ordered by a court to surrender his passport and report daily to police.
South African officials said on Monday that they were examining a request from Equatorial Guinea to question Thatcher about his role as the alleged financier of a failed plot to topple the president of the oil-rich state.
He is due in court on November 25 to answer charges he contributed $275 000 (230 000 euros) to Briton Simon Mann, the alleged mastermind of the coup.
Thatcher’s lawyers insist he had absolutely nothing to do with the plot and is simply a friend of Mann, the founder of mercenary firm Executive Outcomes.
His mother, who served as British premier from 1979 to 1990, returned to London last week from a holiday in the United States but has yet to comment on the case.
Wheeldon said the Thatchers had planned for some time to send the children to school in the United States where they were also enrolled two years ago.
South African investigators said last week that Thatcher was planning to flee South Africa for Texas when he was arrested and charged on August 25 with contributing $275 000 to the alleged plan to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has been in power for 25 years.
Thatcher is charged under South Africa’s law barring mercenary activity and faces a fine or jail term if convicted. – Sapa-AFP