The office of President Thabo Mbeki was regularly informed about the progress of an alleged attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea, the Pretoria Regional Court heard on Monday.
State witness Sean Abdinor, who arranged aviation logistics for the coup, told the court he was informed of this by alleged coup planner Simon Mann and his personal assistant, James Kershaw.
He testified that shortly before the alleged coup attempt, Mann passed on information about the plans to Nigel Morgan, also a state witness, who in turn conveyed this information to ”the president’s office”.
Morgan testified earlier in the week that he passed on reports to a source in the ”foreign intelligence service of the South African government”.
Shortly after the coup failed, Kershaw told Abdinor he had nothing to worry about. ”Morgan is sorting these things out with the South African government”.
Abdinor told the court this was one of the reasons he originally lied to police about his involvement in the coup. He had wanted to ”buy time”.
”I was waiting for the South African, British or Spanish government to intervene as I was told by [Simon] Mann and [James] Kershaw that they had been involved,” Abdinor told the court.
He is the third state witness to have claimed that the government granted, albeit silent, permission for the coup.
Abdinor was testifying against Raymond Stanley Archer, Victor Dracula, Louis du Preez, Errol Harris, Mazanga Kashama, Neves Tomas Matias, Simon Morris Witherspoon and Hendrik Jacobus Hamman, who are accused of contravening the Foreign Military Assistance Act.
They were among a group of men arrested in March 2004 on landing at Harare International Airport, to refuel and pick up military equipment on their way to Equatorial Guinea.
He was the first state witness to link one of the accused directly to the coup.
He said Hamman, a pilot of the Boeing 727 seized in Harare, probably knew what they were involved in.
None of the other men have been shown to have known what they were involved in.
The trial continues on Monday. — Sapa