Zimbabwe braced as 'mercenaries' detained

The Zimbabwean army was placed on full alert today following the seizure of a US registered cargo plane carrying 64 “suspected mercenaries” and military equipment.

The Boeing 727-100 was detained at Harare’s main airport on Sunday night after its owners allegedly made “a false declaration of its cargo and crew,” said Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi.

“The plane was actually carrying 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities,” Mohadi said. “Further investigations also revealed that on board was military material.”

It was not immediately clear where the plane had come from, or what its purpose was.

Mohadi gave no further information, but said full details would be released once officials have established “the true identities of the men and their ultimate mission.”

State-run television broadcast footage of a white plane with the tail number N4610. Inside the aircraft, the station showed two satellite telephones, radios, blue backpacks, sleeping bags, hiking boots, an inflatable raft, paddles, bolt cutters and what appeared to be a can of mace.

No weapons were shown, but the station said officials were still going through the cargo section.

Western journalists were not shown the plane, which Mohadi said had been moved to the nearby Manyame military airfield, and the government’s claims could not be independently verified.

Passengers and crew, all of them “heavily built males” and most of them white, were also taken to the base, where a detention barracks is located, state television reported.

The plane is registered to a company in Ottawa, Kansas called Dodson Aviation.

However, company director Robert Dodson said they had sold the aircraft about a week ago to a “reputable” South African company, based in Pretoria, called Logo Ltd.

“I think they were going to use it for charter flights,” he said.

President Robert Mugabe has repeatedly accused the United States and Britain of plotting to overthrow his autocratic regime.

In 1999, three American missionaries were arrested at Harare International Airport trying to board a homeward Swissair flight with a stockpile of more than 20 rifles and handguns in their baggage.

Accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe, the trio were jailed for eight months. They said the arms were for self-defence during three years' work among converts in war-torn Congo.

Zimbabwe faces its worst political and economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980.

The government’s often-violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks has plunged the country into turmoil.