Immigration officials have refused to divulge how and when the 62 alleged mercenaries being held in a Zimbabwe prison will return to South Africa.
”They told us we can take our bus and basically f-off,” the group’s lawyer, Alwyn Griebenow, said from Harare on Friday.
He said the men are now being labelled a ”high security risk”.
”They [immigration officials] have changed their minds again. They said they will organise the transport when the men leave. They won’t tell me when they will leave because they say it’s ‘highly classified’.”
Griebenow said he will try to organise a flight back to Johannesburg on Friday afternoon. A colleague in Zimbabwe will inform him of any developments.
The men were initially supposed to have been released on Tuesday when their sentences expired. However, this was delayed to Thursday morning.
On Thursday, immigration officials told Griebenow that the group could not be transported back to South Africa via Beitbridge in the bus he had organised because the group was a security risk.
However, on Thursday afternoon officials told Griebenow the bus could be used.
He arrived at Chikurubi maximum-security prison outside Harare, where the men are being housed, with the bus early on Friday morning, as arranged with the officials.
The immigration officials arrived at the prison hours later and held a meeting with Griebenow, where they changed their minds.
”I don’t know when they will be released,” said an exasperated Griebenow.
The men have served 12 months for violating Zimbabwe’s immigration, aviation, firearms and security laws. Their early release in March after a reduction of their sentences was thwarted by an appeal by Zimbabwean Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele.
He argued that early releases only applied to Zimbabweans. Leave for the appeal was granted, but it has not been heard yet.
The men were arrested at Harare International airport when they apparently landed to refuel and pick up military equipment. Zimbabwean authorities said they were on their way to join 15 other alleged mercenaries — including eight South Africans — arrested in Equatorial Guinea at about the same time.
The men said the equipment found in their possession was to be used to guard mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The group in Equatorial Guinea was convicted and given long prison sentences for attempting to overthrow the country’s long-time dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema. — Sapa