A Russian-made plane believed to have been carrying more than 50 passengers and crew has crashed deep in a forest in Equatorial Guinea, killing all aboard and leaving bodies scattered about the crash site, government officials said in Malabo today.

SOUTH African arms dealer Nick du Toit, who has been linked to Mark Thatcher, was jailed for 34 years in Equatorial Guinea yesterday for his part in a failed coup.

A South African arms dealer linked to Sir Mark Thatcher escaped the death penalty but was jailed for 34 years today for his role in an Equatorial Guinea coup plot.

Mark Thatcher has been charged with involvement in a coup plot in oil rich Equatorial Guinea, prosecutors confirmed today.

The court hearing a coup trial in Equatorial Guinea suspended proceedings indefinitely today, heeding prosecutors’ requests for more information about the alleged role of Sir Mark Thatcher and other British financiers.

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.

The government of Equatorial Guinea has asked South Africa to extradite Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who is under house arrest for his alleged role in a coup plot against Equatorial Guinea.

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.

Children taken from a ferry are resting while authorities try to determine if it is the vessel that sparked a hunt for a suspected child-slave ship in Africa's Gulf of Guinea.