Thatcher in legal battle to block coup plot questioning

LAWYERS defending Mark Thatcher against charges he helped finance a coup attempt in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea yesterday challenged the legality of a South African government subpoena to question him.

Thatcher, the 51-year-old businessman son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was subpoenaed after the South African government granted an Equatorial Guinea request to question him about the allegations.

His lawyers argued in a Cape Town court, however, that it was unconstitutional to subpoena him to respond to those questions while he has related South African charges pending.

Equatorial Guinea wants to question a number of prominent Britons, including Thatcher, who was arrested in August, about allegations they financed a plot earlier this year to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Nineteen people are on trial in Equatorial Guinea, including Nick Du Toit, a South African arms dealer alleged to have led an advance team for the plot. Du Toit, the only suspect facing the death penalty, has testified that he met Thatcher and others repeatedly in the months before the alleged coup attempt.

Thatcher’s lawyer Peter Hodes claimed Du Toit later said he was tortured and coerced into confessing. Last month, Simon Mann, a former SAS officer accused of organising the failed coup plot, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Zimbabwe for trying to buy weapons from the state arms manufacturer.