New evidence has emerged linking Jeffrey Archer to the alleged conspirators behind the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea.
A lawyer for the Equatorial Guinea government said in London on Monday that telephone records showed four calls between the homes of one of the alleged financiers behind the plot, London-based Lebanese businessman Ely Calil, and Archer in the run-up to the coup attempt in March.
Another alleged plotter, businessman Greg Wales, also made five calls to Mark Thatcher in the days after the failed coup.
Solicitor Henry Page said: ”The calls … provide substantial links between the conspirators around the time of the coup attempt.”
On Monday night Archer responded to a report about the telephone calls in the London Evening Standard. His lawyer released a statement on behalf of the peer, who was jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice in 2001.
”The Evening Standard reports that on January 3 2004 Lord Archer was telephoned from Mr Calil’s number on two occasions, and one of those calls lasted for 15 minutes,” the statement said. ”That call was between different family members and did not include Lord Archer, who on that occasion was in Cambridge.”
The telephone records obtained by the newspaper show that Calil, who has strenuously denied any involvement in the coup attempt, called the home of Archer on four occasions. The purpose of the calls is not clear.
Archer, who has denied any involvement, was first dragged into the controversy after a payment from a JH Archer of $134 000 (£74,000) was deposited into the bank account of Simon Mann, the Old Etonian former SAS officer who led the failed coup and was subsequently jailed for seven years in Zimbabwe on charges linked to the plot.
Page, who accompanied Equatorial Guinea’s foreign minster, Pastor Micha Ondo Bile, and attorney general on visits to the British Foreign and Home Offices on Monday, said a formal request to interview Archer would be made shortly.
The Home Office has already agreed to facilitate interviews with Wales and Calil.
Thatcher is due to appear in court in Cape Town next month charged with helping to finance the plot.
Calil and his lawyers were not available for comment. – Guardian Unlimited Â