Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former British prime minister, appeared in a South African magistrates’ court today for a televised hearing on charges that he helped bankroll a failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea.

British mercenary leader Simon Mann, a neighbour of Mark Thatcher, was jailed for seven years in Zimbabwe today for conspiring to buy weapons of war.

Frederick Forsyth wrote it up as The Dogs of War, and set it in Equatorial Guinea: A rag-tag band of mercenaries, recruited by a British elite, tries to seize control of a mineral-rich, African backwater.

Hatched by Old Etonians and other members of the British political and financial elite, an alleged scheme to seize control of Equatorial Guinea flush with petrodollars was no ordinary African coup plot.

MARK THATCHER, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret, was charged yesterday with violating South Africa's anti-mercenary law in connection with an alleged plot to topple the government of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.

Mark Thatcher, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's son, met with the alleged top coup conspirator in the months before an alleged foiled plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, one of the defendants told a court today.

A trial in Africa’s biggest mercenary case in decades has opened in Equatorial Guinea, with soldiers of fortune from Europe, Africa and Asia accused in an alleged plot to take control of oil-rich country.

A trial in Africa’s biggest mercenary case in decades was set to open today in the rain-streaked capital of Equatorial Guinea, with soldiers of fortune from Europe, Africa and Asia accused in an alleged plot to take control of the country’s oil wealth.

A former captain in the SAS, accused by Zimbabwe of leading 70 suspected mercenaries in a coup plot against Equatorial Guinea today admitted attempting to possess dangerous weapons and faces ten years in prison.

Sixty-seven suspected mercenaries detained in Zimbabwe along with their three-man flight crew face additional charges of plotting to kill the president of the oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, their lawyer said today.