Pilots not in EG ‘for health’
By Mariam Harutunian

News24 , South Africa
Sept 14 2004

Yerevan – The Armenian aircrew on trial in Equatorial Guinea on charges
of plotting a coup are guilty of nothing more serious than trying to
support their families, according to relatives waiting anxiously back
home in their former Soviet republic.

The six Armenians were among some 90 suspected mercenaries hauled
in across Africa and charged with plotting to overthrow Equatorial
Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

But their families say the six are just innocent airmen who were
unwittingly sucked into the affair when – facing unemployment and
hardship at home – they signed up for work flying shipments of freight
around Africa.

“Our husbands are not fortune-seekers and are not coup plotters,”
Agunik Abazian, wife of jailed flight engineer Razmik Khachatrian,
said from her home in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Since March her 52-year-old husband, along with his five colleagues,
has been languishing in the notorious Black Beach jail in Equatorial
Guinea’s capital, Malabo.

The Armenians are caught up in what prosecutors say was an audacious
plot to replace President Obiang, who has ruled his oil-rich republic
in west Africa since 1979, with exiled opposition leader Severo Moto.

The Armenian aircrew are alleged to have been part of an advanced
party stationed in Malabo to await the arrival of the main force
of mercenaries.

They are being held in Malabo along with 13 other men from South
Africa and Equatorial Guinea.

The Armenian aircrew in jail in Equatorial Guinea are from a modest
background, say their families.

The average monthly wage is less than R350. Many doctors and university
lecturers make ends meet by driving taxis or selling cigarettes.

Armenia’s struggling national airline has sacked dozens of pilots
and flight crew.

“Our husbands are highly-qualified specialists, but like many good
pilots today in Armenia, they found themselves without any work,”
said Abazian, who has two children.

“Therefore they were forced to search for work far from home. They
certainly did not set out for Africa for the sake of their health.”

The six men are employed by Tiger Air, an Armenian firm which leased
the crew and their Antonov-12 cargo plane to customers in Africa.

They arrived in Malabo in January this year.

Between then and their arrest, they flew once, to the Democratic
Republic of Congo, but returned with the hold empty, the men told a
court hearing.

Abazian said that with the help of the Red Cross, the families in
Armenia had been able to speak by telephone to the men in jail.

She said she spoke to her husband for just one minute, but he said
he was healthy, and that he was innocent.

Armenia’s ambassador to Egypt, Sergei Manassarian, has visited the
aircrew at the prison in Malabo.

He said: “My meetings and contacts in Malabo have strengthened my
conviction that our pilots are innocent and that they wil be released
in the near future.”