Posted on 03/10/2004 5:50:08 PM PST by blam
Africa coup 'plotters' could face execution
By Tim Butcher in Johannesburg
(Filed: 11/03/2004)
Zimbabwe yesterday accused Britain, the United States and Spain of plotting a coup in the oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea and threatened 67 alleged mercenaries arrested at Harare airport with the death penalty.
President Thabo Mbeki and Robert Mugabe
Kembo Mohadi, Zimbabwe's home affairs minister, claimed that Simon Mann, the British leader of the group and a former member of the SAS, confessed under police questioning to a plan to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.
The leader of the small west African state was in no doubt yesterday that the arrested men were preparing to oust him and said President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa had warned him that mercenaries were heading to his country.
The allegation by Zimbabwe promises to further poison relations between Britain and Zimbabwe and raises the possibility of a trial of Mr Mann and his associates which will include colourful claims of coups, plots and mercenaries.
This is expected to be exploited by the regime of President Robert Mugabe, which constantly refers in the state-run media to "white, imperialist, British plots to destabilise Africa".
Mr Mohadi said Mr Mann "has been co-operating and has revealed that they were aided by the British secret service [MI6], the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Spanish secret service."
He said the plotters were to install Severo Moto Nsa, a dissident politician from Equatorial Guinea who heads a so-called government in exile in Spain, and some of the plotters were to be handed cabinet positions. Mr Mohadi claimed that Mr Mann had been paid £1 million to carry out the coup.
Zimbabwe raised the stakes when it said that if the 67 men were proven to be mercenaries, they could face the death penalty.
"They are going to face the severest punishment available in our statutes, including capital punishment," Stan Mudenge, Zimbabwe's foreign minister, said.
In Equatorial Guinea, state television showed a man who it claimed was the leader of a 15-strong "advanced party" of mercenaries who were said to be associates of the group arrested in Zimbabwe.
Speaking in English translated into Spanish, the man, who was named as Nick du Toit, a white South African, was said to have admitted a plot to remove the president.
"It wasn't a question of taking the life of the head of state, but of spiriting him away, taking him to Spain and forcing him into exile and then installing the government in exile of Severo Moto Nsa," the words attributed to the man said.
Charles Burrows, a senior executive of Logo Logistics, the British security firm which had chartered the alleged plotters' aircraft, said Equatorial Guinea was one of its clients. But he denied allegations that 15 Logo employees working in Equatorial Guinea were preparing a coup with the assistance of the 67 others who allegedly were to fly in military supplies on a plane leased by the company.
The alleged plot was unveiled on Sunday night when the Zimbabwean authorities seized the plane and arrested the 64 men on board and three Logo employees who met it on the tarmac.
Mr Burrows said the aircraft was delivering men and equipment to commercial mining sites in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I'm suprised, even disappointed, that they weren't after Mugabe.
Zimbabwe intercepts a tip-off by thier fellow Marxists, South Africa. How convenient!
They have no evidence of any coup plot. The people didn't even have weapons!
We're talking about Zimbabwe....
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