The 62 alleged mercenaries, imprisoned for a year in Zimbabwe, were still in Chikurubi prison at 8am, their lawyer, Alwyn Griebenow, said on Saturday. The men should have been released on Tuesday when their sentences expired.
But they remained in the Chikurubi maximum security prison for several more days, though, from Thursday, in the care of immigration officials.
Immigration officials have changed their minds several times about when the 62 will be released.
They have also refused to say how and when the group will return to South Africa.
By Saturday morning the two options appeared to sending them by road to Beit Bridge where journalists have been awaiting their arrival since Wednesday, or by chartered aircraft.
The 62 are among 70 men who were arrested in March last year when their Boeing 727 stopped in Harare to pick up weapons that Zimbabwe alleges were to be used to depose long-time Equato-Guinean dictator, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in Malabo.
Briton Simon Mann, founder of the defunct mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes and the suspected mastermind of the alleged coup, remains behind bars serving a four-year term on more serious charges of breaching firearms laws.
The two pilots who flew the plane into Harare are due for release in two months.
The $3-million Boeing 727 that flew them into Harare has been forfeited to Zimbabwe.
Former British prime minister Maggie Thatcher’s businessman-son, Mark Thatcher, was accused of partly financing the alleged plot to install opposition leader Severo Moto in Malabo and pleaded guilty to contravening the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act in January.
Although he paid a R3-million fine, he still strongly denies knowingly taking part in the conspiracy. – Sapa