Two South African pilots who flew suspected mercenaries to Harare last year entered South Africa at the Beit Bridge road border post on Saturday evening, their lawyer said.
Alwyn Griebenow said a light aircraft took Yaap Steyl and Hamman Jacobus from Beit Bridge to Pretoria to be reunited with their families before facing prosecution in South Africa.
They are scheduled to join eight others in court for contravening sections of the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.
”They will first have the opportunity to reunite with their families in Pretoria,” said Griebenow.
Steyl and Jacobus were among the 70 men arrested in March last year when their plane landed in Harare to pick up weapons that Zimbabwean authorities say were to be used to overthrow Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Malabo.
The men were due to fly to Johannesburg later on Saturday, after serving 11 months of their term at a maximum-security prison outside Harare.
They were sentenced to 16 months in jail in September last year on aviation and immigration charges.
Sixty-two of the alleged mercenaries, who all held South African passports, were released in May after serving a year in prison for Zimbabwe’s immigration laws.
The mastermind of the alleged operation, Briton Simon Mann, is still in jail in Zimbabwe. He was convicted of firearms and security offences.
The men claimed they were destined for the Democratic Republic of Congo to guard diamond mines. — Sapa