Equatorial Guinea on Friday welcomed news that South Africa will try suspects who allegedly organised a coup plot in this oil-rich Central African nation.
South African prosecutors said on Monday they will try 61 suspected mercenaries who were deported to South Africa from Zimbabwe a day earlier, one man still in custody in Zimbabwe and two men who returned to South Africa several months ago.
”The government of Equatorial Guinea considers the sovereignty of its nation, and the safety of its people, to be its highest priority,” government spokesperson Miguel Oyono said in a statement. ”We applaud every effort to bring all of the guilty parties to justice to prevent this from happening to our country.”
The plot against Equatorial Guinea’s authoritarian government allegedly involved wealthy and titled British financiers. Among them was Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who pleaded guilty last year in a South African court to unwittingly helping to bankroll the coup attempt. He received a four-year-suspended sentence.
South African prosecutors said the men will appear to face the charges within the next 20 days.
All the suspected mercenaries were arrested in March last year when their ageing chartered plane landed in Harare.
During a lengthy trial in Zimbabwe last year, the men denied being part of a coup lot and said they were bound for the Democratic Republic of Congo to work security at a diamond mine.
Equatorial Guinea has sentenced 24 other suspected mercenaries from Europe and Africa to lengthy prison terms. Prosecutors alleged the West African country’s rebel leader Severo Moto offered the group money and oil rights to overthrow its dictator.
The alleged ringleader, former British soldier Simon Mann, remains in prison in Zimbabwe, serving out a four-year sentence for attempting to purchase weapons illegally from the Zimbabwean state arms manufacturing company. — Sapa-AP