Zimbabwe to deport 60 alleged mercenaries

Sixty alleged mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in the West African nation of Equatorial Guinea are due to be deported to South Africa today after spending more than a year in a Zimbabwe prison.

Zimbabwe authorities pledged to release the South Africans from a high security prison outside Harare, said Jonathan Samkange, a lawyer for the men.

“But they (prison officials) are saying they are a very high risk so they are making arrangements themselves to send them to South Africa which they don’t want to disclose to me or the world,” Samkange added.

However, another lawyer for the men, Alwyn Gribenow, said yesterday that they would be transported by bus from Harare to a border crossing to be handed over to South African immigration officials.

Gribenow said the men – all South African – were generally in good health, apart from one hospitalised at the prison with suspected tuberculosis.

The men were arrested in March 2004 when their chartered plane landed in Harare on the way to oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Zimbabwean authorities charged them with plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

During a lengthy trial last year, the men denied being part of a coup plot and said they were bound for Congo to work as security officers at a diamond mine.

The Zimbabwean court convicted them of relatively minor immigration charges after prosecutors failed to prove more serious weapons and coup conspiracy charges.

But one suspect – former British Special Air Services soldier Simon Mann, who met the flight at Harare – was sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to illegally purchase weapons. The two pilots of the Boeing 737 also remain in prison.

The other men “are very sceptical that they will really be released but are glad that something is finally happening,” Gribenow said.

He said they would be reunited with their families before having to appear in a South African court to face possible charges of violating the country’s laws. No date has been set for their court appearance.

A spokesman for the South African National Prosecutors’ Office, Makhosini Nkosi, said investigators were probing whether the men had contravened the country’s Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act. If so, they would face prosecution.

“We will speak to them when appropriate,” Nkosi said. “They’ve been in jail for a year and want to see their families. Their families want to see them.”

“We have contact with their lawyer and know where to find them. So why would we want to arrest them?”

Mark Thatcher, formerly resident in Cape Town and the son of Margaret Thatcher, last year pleaded guilty in a South African court to unwittingly helping to bankroll the coup attempt.

Equatorial Guinea has sentenced 24 other suspected mercenaries from European and African nations to lengthy prison terms.