14 accused of Africa's biggest mercenary plot

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.

Fourteen men are accused in the alleged March coup plot. A 15th defendant, a German, died in prison of what Amnesty International said was suspected torture.

Seventy other European and African mercenaries accused in the same alleged plot are in custody in Zimbabwe.

A trial is under way there for 67 of them, who are charged with ordering assault rifles, grenades, anti-tank rocket launchers and other weapons from a government-owned defence company for the alleged coup plot.

Zimbabwe has rejected requests from Equatorial Guinea to have the alleged mercenaries extradited, a state newspaper in Harare reported on Saturday.

International diplomats and envoys of rights groups assembled in Malabo to monitor what Equatorial Guinea’s government, routinely accused by the US State Department and others of rights abuses, pledged would be a fair trial.

Zimbabwean security forces announced on March 6 they had foiled the alleged coup plot by stopping the accused mercenaries’ plane at Harare International Airport. The 14 men on trial in Malabo were already in Equatorial Guinea’s capital, where they were arrested.

At stake in the alleged plot are hundreds of millions of dollars a year from a repressive, isolated nation that has become Africa’s third-biggest oil producer since oil development began here the mid-1990s.

The country is ruled by President Teodoro Obiang, who overthrew and executed his uncle in 1979.

London-based Global Witness and others say Obiang and the rest of the ruling family and elite have sent the vast majority of oil profits into accounts overseas for their personal use.

Obiang’s government says the coup plot was launched with the aid of British and South African financiers and oil brokers. The government claims the aim was ousting the president by force with the alleged mercenaries, and parachuting in an opposition figure in exile to take power.

The defendants deny the allegations, saying the men in Zimbabwe were en route to Congo for a lawful contract to guard mines there.

Alleged confessions, such as one reported aired on TV here by an accused ringleader, Nick du Toit, were made under torture, the men’s families say.

The man accused as the alleged plot’s overall leader, Simon Mann, is in custody in Zimbabwe.

A former British special forces member, Mann has been a hired soldier in African conflicts including civil wars in Angola and diamond-rich Sierra Leone in the 1990s.

Newspapers have said that after his arrest, Mann sought help from Mark Thatcher, son of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and from oil broker Eli Calil. Lawyers for both men have denied any involvement.

Defendants on trial include men from South Africa, Armenia and one apparently from central Asia.

The government has not released the names of all the men, nor the exact charges against them.