Two South African pilots arrested in Zimbabwe last year over an alleged plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea will be released this month after serving two-thirds of their 16-month prison terms, their lawyer said on Thursday.
Pilot Jaap-Niel Steyl and co-pilot Hendrik Jacobus Hamman are currently being held in Harare’s top-security Chikurubi prison.
”They are due to be released on July 21 or 29. They’ve served their two-thirds [of jail time],” their lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, said.
The two men were jailed by a Harare magistrate last September for immigration and aviation offences after they flew a Boeing 727 into the country in March.
The men were to pick up weapons in Zimbabwe that prosecutors said were to be used to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.
Sixty-four men aboard the plane, and three men who went to meet them in Harare — including alleged coup plot leader and Briton Simon Mann — were arrested and jailed for similar offences.
Most of the men were slapped with year-long sentences for violating Zimbabwe’s immigration laws. They were released in May this year and deported back to South Africa.
Several of them have subsequently been charged under the country’s anti-mercenary laws.
Mann, a former British special forces commando, received a seven-year sentence, later reduced to four for security and firearms offences relating to the purchase of weapons without a certificate.
Zimbabwe does not have anti-mercenary laws, which is why the men were charged with relatively minor offences. — Sapa-DPA