24 mercenaries convicted in Equatorial Guinea plot
Japan Today
Nov 27 2004
Saturday, November 27, 2004 at 07:43 JST — MALABO, Equatorial Guinea –
A court in Equatorial Guinea convicted 24 accused European and African
mercenaries and opposition leaders on Friday and sentenced them to
prison for an alleged coup plot in the oil-rich nation, but it waived
the death penalty for two top figures.
The court’s rejection of death penalties requested by prosecutors
potentially strengthens Equatorial Guinea’s bid to extradite an alleged
financier of the plot: Mark Thatcher, son of the former British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher.
President Teodoro Obiang’s 25-year regime accuses Mark Thatcher
and other, mostly British, financiers of commissioning scores of
mercenaries in a takeover plot in the isolated West African nation
which is the continent’s third-largest oil producer.
The financial backers intended to install an opposition figure as a
puppet leader, Equatorial Guinea claims. The alleged plot was exposed
by South African intelligence services in March, days before it was
to have been carried out, leading to the arrests of roughly 90 alleged
mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe.
On Friday, 21 shackled, handcuffed defendants listened in a
chandelier-hung courtroom converted from a conference center as
Judge Salvador Ondo Nkumu read out verdicts and prison sentences,
without elaboration.
South African arms dealer Nick du Toit, accused by prosecutors of
leading an advance team for the coup plot, was sentenced to 34 years
in prison despite Attorney General Jose Olo Obono’s repeated demands
for the death penalty.
Du Toit, a stooped, graying, sadly smiling man who like all the
defendants had lost scores of pounds since arrest in March, had
provided the bulk of prosecutors’ case — testifying to meetings with
Thatcher and others around Africa, and alleging detailed plans to
move men and materiel into place.
But Du Toit repudiated his testimony last week, saying he agreed
to a fake confession to try to save himself and his co-defendants,
after one defendant was tortured to death in Malabo’s notorious Black
Beach prison shortly after his arrest in March.
Equatorial Guinea says the man, a German, died of malaria. Rights
groups cite witness accounts of wounds from torture.
Du Toit’s sentence effectively means life in Black Beach — a tiny
penitentiary built on the black volcanic rocks between Obiang’s
Spanish-colonial palace and the gray Atlantic.
The court also sentenced Severo Moto, the opposition figure who
the coup plotters allegedly intended to install as president, to 63
years. Moto was the only other defendant facing the death penalty. He
is living in exile and was sentenced in absentia.
Eight other opposition figures, also living in exile, were each
sentenced to 53 years.
Six other alleged South African mercenaries were sentenced to 17
years each; six Armenian pilots were sentenced to between 14- to 24
years each, and two Equatorial Guinea citizens were ordered jailed
for one to four months.
Obiang’s regime, with one of the world’s worst human rights records,
is accused by the International Bar Association and others of routine
torture and extensive interference in the justice system. Obiang,
speaking to reporters in August, stated the defendants’ conviction
as a given.
The decision to spare du Toit the death penalty was seen at least
in part as a message to South Africa, where Thatcher, a 51-year-old
businessman, is now facing separate prosecution in connection with
the alleged plot.
South Africa opposes capital punishment and was unlikely to send
Thatcher to Equatorial Guinea if he risked the death penalty. (Wire
reports)
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