The trial of suspected mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea resumed on Tuesday with a defence lawyer saying the only defendant to have admitted to a minor role in the alleged putsch will spectacularly change his testimony.
The same lawyer, Fabian Nsue Nguema, also said that British businessman Mark Thatcher is to be tried in his absence by the court for his alleged role in the bid to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
”Eight new names have been added to the list of accused, including Britain’s Mark Thatcher who will be tried in absentia,” said lawyer Nsue Nguema shortly before the trial resumed early on Tuesday afternoon.
Nsue Nguema represents South African Nick du Toit, a 48-year-old former officer in South Africa’s special forces during the apartheid era who is the only suspect to have acknowledged a minor role in the alleged coup against Obiang.
On Tuesday, his lawyer said Du Toit will ”spectacularly change testimony” before the court in Malabo.
”Everything he has said up to now was done under pressure from some people who promised to free him if he admitted there was a bid to mount a coup against President Obiang,” Nsue Nguema said before the trial reopened.
Most of the original 19 accused — eight South Africans, including Du Toit; a six-man Armenian air crew; and five Equatorial Guineans, one of them a former deputy government minister — appeared in court in leg-irons and manacles.
The regime of Obiang, who has since 1979 ruled with an iron hand over one of the world’s poorest countries turned major African oil producer, announced it had foiled a complex coup bid in March.
The 19 original defendants were allegedly to be a reception committee for a group of mercenaries supposed to fly in from Zimbabwe and guide them to their targets in Equatorial Guinea. The alleged Zimbabwean coup plotters were arrested in Harare on March 7.
Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was arrested in August at his luxury home in Cape Town, South Africa, and accused of contributing $275 000 to help finance the plot in the small Central African nation.
His lawyers deny the charge and maintain that the funds were an investment in an air-ambulance venture for west Africa.
Thatcher’s lawyer said in Cape Town on Tuesday there is little chance his client will get a fair trial in Malabo.
”Anything is to be expected from these people, you cannot get a fair trial in there [Equatorial Guinea],” Peter Hodes said after Equato-Guinean judicial authorities said Thatcher will be tried in his absence.
In South Africa, Thatcher has been charged with violating a law on mercenary activity and is due to appear in court on November 25.
Prosecutors for Obiang’s regime want to question Thatcher about his alleged role in the reported coup plot, but he has challenged a subpoena to do so before a South African court.
The names of the other eight people added to the list of accused ”are for the most part members of the government in exile” of opposition leader Severo Moto, who allegedly masterminded the plot from his home in exile in Spain, said Nsue Nguema.
The trial in Equatorial Guinea resumed after a two-and-a-half-month suspension, called by the prosecution, which said it needed to hear evidence from Thatcher.
A friend of Thatcher’s, fellow Briton Simon Mann, was sentenced to seven years in jail in Zimbabwe on September 10 for attempting to buy weapons that Harare alleges were to be used in the coup.
Sixty-seven other suspected mercenaries were sentenced to 12 and 16 months in Zimbabwe for violating immigration laws when their plane stopped over in Harare on March 7, allegedly to pick up weapons for the coup attempt.
A quarter of a century ago, Obiang deposed his uncle and had him executed. He has stashed millions of dollars in oil revenues in a United States bank, according to a US congressional report. — Sapa-AFP