Four of eight South Africans suspected of involvement in a planned coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea appeared briefly in the Pretoria Regional Court on Friday.
The men’s defence team received a copy of a draft charge sheet and an undertaking that the final one will be handed over by August 31.
The matter was then postponed to January 16 next year, when the men are to go on trial with four co-accused.
Their trial, for allegedly contravening sections of the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, has been set down to continue until February 3.
The four who appeared on Friday are Victor Dracula, Mzanga Kashama, Neves Matias and Maitre Ruakuluka.
The other four are Raymond Archer, Louis du Preez, Errol Harris and Simon Witherspoon.
They were part of a group of 61 that returned to South Africa in May after spending more than a year in a Zimbabwean prison for violating that country’s immigration, aviation, firearms and security laws.
The charges were related to an alleged plot to topple the government of Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
The men were among a group of 70 arrested in March last year when they landed at Harare International airport, allegedly to refuel and pick up military equipment. They all had 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 around the same time.
Alleged coup leader Simon Mann and two pilots remain in prison in Zimbabwe, while the alleged mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea are serving long prison sentences.
Mark Thatcher, the son of former United Kingdom prime minister Margaret Thatcher, paid a fine after being charged in South Africa for allegedly financing the plot.
The eight men are out on warning. — Sapa