Some of the 62 South African suspected mercenaries who had been due to be freed from a Zimbabwean jail this week became tearful upon learning on Thursday morning that their release has been put on hold.
”They are not doing well,” lawyer Alwyn Griebenow said from Harare after visiting the men at the Chikurubi prison. ”I broke the news to them this morning. It is a bad feeling when grown men stand before you with tears in their eyes.”
The men, who received a four-month reprieve on their sentences last Wednesday following a successful appeal, were due to return home by bus on Tuesday morning.
By the afternoon, however, there was no sign of the men at the Beit Bridge border post where Griebenow and a contingent of journalists were waiting.
It was later learnt that their return was put on hold when Zimbabwe’s Attorney General, Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, lodged an application for leave to appeal against the Supreme Court’s reduction of their sentences.
The men were not told anything of the latest events and have been expecting to return home, Griebenow said.
The Zimbabwe Supreme Court is expected to give a ruling on Friday afternoon on the attorney general’s application.
If leave to appeal is refused, the men will probably return home early next week. If not, it is not known how much longer they will have to stay — but at least for the duration of the appeal hearing.
Sixty-five of the original 70 men arrested in March last year in connection with an alleged coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea remain in prison in Zimbabwe. Two were acquitted, two more freed for medical reasons, and one died in jail.
Of the 65, two pilots and alleged coup leader Simon Mann will have to remain in Zimbabwe to serve the remainder of their longer sentences, according to Griebenow.
The Zimbabwean Supreme Court last Wednesday reduced the men’s sentences by four months.
Gula-Ndebele now seeks to appeal that ruling.
He also disputes that the men qualify for a one-third remission of sentence for good behaviour.
Gula-Ndebele said this only applied to Zimbabweans.
Should the Supreme Court’s decision stand, and a reduction of sentence for good behaviour apply, 62 of the men, who were sentenced to 12 months in jail each, qualify for immediate release.
The two pilots, who received 16-month sentences, become due for release on May 10.
Mann was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, later reduced to four years. He will become eligible for release next May.
The group was arrested at Harare International airport when they apparently landed to refuel and pick up military equipment. They were all travelling on South African passports.
Zimbabwean authorities claimed they were on their way to join 15 other suspected mercenaries — including eight South Africans — arrested in Equatorial Guinea at about the same time.
They were accused of planning to overthrow Equatorial Guinea’s leader, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
The men denied the charges, claiming they were on their way to the Democratic Republic of Congo to guard mines. They were convicted of breaching Zimbabwe’s aviation, immigration, firearms and security laws.
British businessman Mark Thatcher, accused of partly financing the alleged coup plot, was fined R3-million in January after pleading guilty to contravening South African anti-mercenary laws. — Sapa