Equatorial Guinea’s state prosecutor asked a court on Tuesday to sentence British mercenary Simon Mann to nearly 32 years in prison.
At the ornate palace, the president of Equatorial Guinea on Monday outlined thoughts on a conspiracy he believes lay behind a plot to overthrow him.
British mercenary Simon Mann goes on trial Tuesday in Equatorial Guinea for allegedly plotting to oust the oil-rich country’s iron-fisted ruler.
British mercenary Simon Mann will go on trial in Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday for leading a failed 2004 coup, the state said on Friday.
The West African state of Equatorial Guinea voted on Sunday in elections expected to be won yet again by the veteran hardline president amid opposition charges of voting irregularities and harassment. The oil-rich state went to the polls in local and general elections whose results were for observers a foregone conclusion
At least four people were killed and seven missing after a plane crashed on Wednesday into the Atlantic Ocean off the Equatorial Guinea island of Annobon, the Malabo government announced. There was no confirmation of earlier reports that said that leaders of the ruling party were on board the plane when it crashed.
A Briton accused of masterminding a failed coup in Equatorial Guinea is being held illegally and has been denied access to his lawyer since he was charged in February, a defence attorney said on Saturday. British mercenary Simon Mann was secretly deported to the West African state of Equatorial Guinea on January 31 from Zimbabwe.
A British mercenary awaiting trial in Equatorial Guinea for leading a failed 2004 coup has said the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was involved in the plot, the public prosecutor said on Sunday. Jose Olo said former British special forces officer Simon Mann had testified that Mark Thatcher knew all about the scheme to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
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/ 13 February 2008
A British diplomat on Tuesday paid a jail visit to Simon Mann, the suspected British mastermind of a failed 2004 coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. The visit enabled David Harris to ”see for himself the quality of care Simon Mann has been receiving daily since his arrival” in Malabo, where he was imprisoned, the radio report said.
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/ 7 February 2008
Former British special forces officer Simon Mann will go on trial in Equatorial Guinea, charged with plotting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the government said on Thursday. ”He will receive a fair trial with all procedural and institutional guarantees,” a government statement said.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea on Monday named Ricardo Mangue Obama Nfubea the country’s new Prime Minister and asked him to form a government, national television said. Mangue Obama Nfubea’s predecessor and the whole government of the West African state had resigned on Thursday.
Prime Minister Miguel Abia Biteo Borico and the whole government of the West African state of Equatorial Guinea resigned on Thursday, national television reported. ”As a good militant of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea, I hand in the resignation of my government,” Abia Biteo said in a speech relayed on television.
Distraught families in Equatorial Guinea were trying on Monday to identify or simply get news of the mostly charred bodies of at least 60 people killed when an overloaded Antonov passenger plane crashed in flames at the weekend. The Russian-built aircraft went down in dense jungle on Saturday soon after take-off.
Equatorial Guinea on Friday welcomed news that South Africa will try suspects who allegedly organised a coup plot in this oil-rich Central African nation. South African prosecutors said on Monday they will try 61 suspected mercenaries who were deported to South Africa from Zimbabwe a day earlier.
A fire raged through part of Equatorial Guinea’s capital and destroyed about 100 homes and left almost 1 000 people homeless, but claimed no lives, national radio reported on Monday. A first house in the impoverished Ela Nguema district of the tropical Central African city caught fire when a candle set light to a pile of clothes.
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/ 10 December 2004
Mark Schmidt came home last week. He is back in Tzaneen, Limpopo, after being in prison in Equatorial Guinea for eight-and-a-half months.
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/ 18 November 2004
Equatorial Guinea prosecutors confirmed on Thursday they have charged Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, with involvement in an alleged coup plot in the oil-rich West African nation. Thatcher is accused of having helped finance the coup attempt, Attorney General Jose Olo Obono said.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125705">Coup plotters sentenced in Pretoria</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=125671">Coup confession came ‘after torture'</a>
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/ 16 November 2004
The trial of suspected mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea resumed on Tuesday with a lawyer saying the only defendant to have admitted to a minor role in the alleged putsch will change his testimony. Also, British businessman Mark Thatcher is to be tried in his absence by the court for his alleged role in the coup bid.
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/ 21 October 2004
A new defence lawyer was on Thursday appointed to a group of alleged coup plotters — including South Africans — held in Equatorial Guinea after their previous counsel died of malaria last week. Fabian Nsue Nguema, a member of the bar in Malabo, will replace his colleague Fernando Mico Nsue, who died on October 12.
The trial of 19 people accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea was suspended indefinitely on Tuesday at the request of the prosecution, the court said.
"The affair has an international dimension, there are inquiries outside the country that are beyond the remit of this tribunal," said presiding Judge Salvador Ondo.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121342">’Is it normal to be tortured?'</a>
Frederick Forsyth wrote it up as The Dogs of War and set it in Malabo: a rag-tag band of mercenaries, recruited by a British elite, tries to seize control of a mineral-rich, African backwater. Now the basic plot is playing out again as a trial unfolds for a group accused of a failed plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.
Detailing torture and coercion, accused South African mercenaries on Monday repudiated purported confessions taken from them in an alleged coup conspiracy that spanned from Britain to South Africa. "I can show marks," South African Jose Cardoso said, gesturing with his chained hands during his dramatic testimony.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121356">Thatcher’s family slip out of Cape Town</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=121326">Scorpions charge ‘mercenaries’ in SA</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121328">Forsyth’s fiction close to the facts</a>
Equatorial Guinea and South Africa are discussing the possibility of extraditing Mark Thatcher, son of the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, accused of bankrolling a coup plot in Malabo, an official said on Friday. A formal extradition request has not yet been lodged by the Equato-Guinean authorities, said the official.
Six Armenian air crew members accused of helping to plot to oust Equatorial Guinea’s long-time leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema told a court in Malabo on Thursday that they had nothing to do with the alleged plot. They said they were until recently unaware on what charges they were being held.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=121156">Verdict expected in Zim 70 trial</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=121128">Thatcher was ready to flee SA</a>
The trial of 14 suspected foreign mercenaries, accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea, resumed in Malabo on Tuesday when their South African alleged ringleader was cross-examined by defence lawyers. Nick du Toit, who has admitted a limited role in a coup bid in Equatorial Guinea, responded to questions by lawyers.
Mann’s million-dollar promise
The prosecutor in the trial of a group of suspected foreign mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea said on Monday he will call for the death penalty for the coup plotters’ alleged leader, South African Nick du Toit. Du Toit and 13 other suspected mercenaries from South Africa and Armenia appeared in court on Monday.
Fourteen alleged mercenaries including eight South Africans will go on trial in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, on August 23 charged with an attempted coup in the West African state, Attorney General Jose Olo Obono announced on Friday. The alleged coup was thwarted when 15 men were arrested in Malabo and 70 in Harare.
The government of Equatorial Guinea said on Thursday it will file "criminal and civil suits" against foreign media for their allegedly "tendentious comments" on links between the country’s president and a scandal-plagued United States bank.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119172">The dictator’s Achilles heel</a>