Zimbabwean authorities are considering grounds for extraditing suspected mercenary Simon Mann to Equatorial Guinea as they want him to stand trial for masterminding a botched coup.
Equatorial Guinea Attorney General José Olo Obon forwarded a 200-page dossier to the Zimbabwean attorney general last week.
The documents, the Mail & Guardian is told, were read by Zimbabwe’s Attorney General, Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, who was pressured into identifying grounds for extradition after a visiting Guinea delegation signed commercial agreements with various government departments.
”The matter will be heard by the magistrates court in a few weeks,” a government official said.
Constitutional law expert Dr Lovemore Madhuku told the M&G that there are ”sufficient grounds to extradite Mann to Equatorial Guinea”.
”If a person is wanted in another country to stand trial, there are not sufficient grounds to make him not available for trial unless there isn’t a sufficient process in that country to allow for a fair trial.”
But Mann’s lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, said that ”he wasn’t aware of any attempt to extradite his client”, saying that should the government pursue it, he will ”vigorously oppose it”.
”Guinea’s judicial system doesn’t fall within international judicial systems,” he said. Samkange said there have been reports by Amnesty International condemning Guinea’s judicial system for gross human rights violations. He added President Robert Mugabe should honour his previous statements that it would be against international law to send Mann there.