Arrest warrant for Thatcher
2008-03-29 16:48
Malabo - Equatorial Guinea has issued an international arrest warrant for Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, accusing him of being an instigator of an abortive coup plot in 2004, the country's chief prosecutor said on Saturday.
"We are more than ever convinced that Mark Thatcher took part in the plot along with Simon Mann," who was extradited to Equatorial Guinea in January after serving a jail term in Zimbabwe, prosecutor Jose Olo Obono told AFP.
"We now have new evidence against Mark Thatcher and we must question him here," Obono added. "That is why we have decided to launch a new process by issuing an arrest warrant for him."
Obono said that Interpol had been asked to look for Thatcher, "because we really don't know where he is, no one knows where he is living".
Thatcher, now 54, pleaded guilty in South Africa in January 2005 to violating anti-mercenary laws in that country, saying he had unwittingly helped plotters against Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
He paid a three million rand fine and was given a four-year suspended prison sentence.
Thatcher was also forced to answer questions submitted by Equatorial Guinea prosecutors in a South African court about the conspiracy.
Malabo alleges that Thatcher helped to fund a group of mostly British-based businessmen who sought to overthrow Obiang's regime in favour of an opposition leader who would give them access to Africa's third-largest oil reserves.
Denied knowledge of a coup plot
The son of the former British Prime Minister, who is called Sir Mark in Britain because he inherited a baronetcy from his late father, Sir Denis, has denied any knowledge of a coup plot.
But he has acknowledged knowing some of the alleged plotters, including London-based Lebanese businessman Ely Calil and British mercenary Simon Mann, the alleged coup mastermind.
Mann, 55, once an officer in Britain's elite SAS special forces regiment, was secretly deported to Equatorial Guinea on January 31 from Zimbabwe, even though he was still appealing against his extradition.
An alumnus of Britain's famous Eton school, Mann was arrested with 61 others when their plane landed at Harare international airport in March 2004.
They were accused of stopping off to pick up weapons from Harare while on their way to Malabo to oust Obiang, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea with an iron fist since 1979.
Mann said he and his co-accused were on their way to the Democratic Republic of Congo and needed the weapons for a security contract at a mine.
He was sentenced to seven years in jail, but the term was later reduced. Most of his co-accused were released from a Zimbabwean prison in 2005.
No date has been fixed for Mann's trial in Equatorial Guinea, Obono said.