Putschists free 3 ministers

2003-07-17 18:51

Sao Tome - Putschists in Sao Tome and Principe on Thursday escorted three women government ministers from the military barracks where they had been held since a coup some 36 hours earlier, witnesses said.

But it was unclear whether the three - the health, education and finance ministers Claudina Augusto Cruz, Pontifece Bonfim and Maria Tebus Torres - had been freed definitively or were being allowed home only temporarily to wash and change clothes.

Bonfim reportedly fell ill on Thursday morning.

The three were taken under military escort from the army barracks where they had been held, along with nine male colleagues, since the coup was launched in the tiny west African archipelago in the early hours of Wednesday.

Thirteen of the 14-member cabinet were detained when hundreds of soldiers, led by Major Fernando Pereira, launched their coup.

Maria das Neves, the prime minister, was among those detained but she was taken to hospital after suffering a mild heart attack following a gunfight at her home when the putschists came to arrest her.

The foreign minister, Mateus Meira Rita, for his part, was in Portugal for a ministerial meeting of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Nations.

The president of Sao Tome, Fradique de Menezes, was in Nigeria when the coup took place. On Thursday, he was trying to win international support to restore his elected government. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA