Armenian pilots have nothing to do with Equatorial Guinea coup – official
Arminfo
14 Jan 05
YEREVAN
“The Armenian pilots have nothing to do with the coup attempt against
the authorities of Equatorial Guinea and therefore, have nothing to do
with its presumed organizers,” the spokesman for the Armenian Foreign
Ministry, Gamlet Gasparyan, has told an Arminfo correspondent.
“No evidence or proof of the Armenian pilots’ involvement in this coup
attempt was presented during the entire trial. We regard the court
sentence against our pilots as unfair,” Gasparyan stressed.
To recap, a court in Equatorial Guinea sentenced the six Armenian
pilots to prison terms ranging from 14 to 24 years on 26 November and
fined them 25-50m francs. The Armenian pilots were arrested along with
a large group of people and charged with complicity in the coup
attempt in that country.
[Passage omitted: Details of Mark Thatcher’s sentence]