Mail & Guardian Online , South Africa
Aug 26 2004

Armenians ‘had nothing to do’ with coup plot

Malabo, Equatorial Guinea

Six Armenian air crew members accused of helping to plot to oust
Equatorial Guinea’s long-time leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema told a
court in Malabo on Thursday that they had nothing to do with the
alleged plot.

Samuel Darbinyan (41), a co-pilot of the aircraft leased by a company
belonging to Gerhard Eugen Merz of Germany — one of 15 alleged
mercenaries arrested in March and accused of fomenting a putsch in
the tiny, oil-rich country — said he does not know why he has been
held in prison since March along with five other Armenian crew
members and eight South Africans.

Merz, who was arrested along with the others, died in detention,
officially of cerebral malaria, but with rights groups saying he was
tortured to death.

All the Armenian crew members, including captain Ashot Kerapetyan,
told the court that they were unaware on what charges they were being
held until a few days before hearings began on Monday.

The Armenians arrived in Equatorial Guinea in January this year.

Their Antonov-12 aircraft was hired the following month by Nick du
Toit, the South African soldier-turned-businessman who risks the
death penalty for allegedly leading the coup plot.

>From the time they arrived in the tiny Central African country, the
Armenians flew out of Equatorial Guinea once on board the Antonov,
bound for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where they were to
deliver cargo picked up at N’Dola in Zambia, they told the court.

Merz had given them the instructions for that trip, they said in
separate testimonies.

The flight crew said the shipment was never delivered to the DRC
because the airport they were bound for there was closed. They said
they returned to Malabo with nothing in the hold.

Du Toit told the court on Monday that the Antonov was to have picked
up ammunition for security agents at mines in the DRC. The crew
members said they were unaware of what their payload was to have
been.

The Armenians are on trial alongside eight South Africans and four
Equato-Guineans, all accused of complicity in a plot to topple
Obiang, who has been in power since 1979.

Obiang announced their arrests on March 9, saying: “A group of
mercenaries entered the country and was studying plans to carry out a
coup d’état.”

Without going into details, Obiang said interrogation of the suspects
revealed they were financed by multinational companies and “countries
that do not like us”.

The arrests came days before 70 men were detained when their plane
stopped off in Zimbabwe, allegedly en route to Equatorial Guinea for
the coup.

The group arrested in Zimbabwe has consistently said it was on its
way to the DRC to protect diamond mines.

Du Toit is so far the only one of the 18 defendants on trial in
Equatorial Guinea to admit any involvement in a coup plot.

Verdict expected in Zimbabwe
Meanwhile, a Zimbabwe magistrate is expected to hand down verdicts on
Friday when the trial resumes of the 70 suspected mercenaries held on
charges of plotting the coup in Equatorial Guinea.

The men, who include Briton Simon Mann, are accused of being at the
heart of a conspiracy that allegedly also includes Mark Thatcher, son
of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher, a friend and neighbour of Mann’s, was arrested at his Cape
Town home on Wednesday and charged under South Africa’s Foreign
Military Assistance Act, which bars mercenary activity, for allegedly
bankrolling the coup plot.

He denied the charges and was released on bail.

On Thursday, the elite Scorpions unit said it arrested Thatcher
because he was planning to move to the United States next week.

“I can confirm he was planning to leave the country,” said
spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi.

“He claims he was planning to relocate his family. He was supposed to
leave for the US next week,” Nkosi added. — Sapa-AFP, Sapa