Simon Mann held 'illegally'
2008-04-13 13:25
Malabo - A Briton accused of masterminding a failed coup in Equatorial Guinea was being held illegally and denied access to his lawyer since being charged in February, a defence attorney said Saturday.
British mercenary Simon Mann, a former officer of Britain's SAS special forces regiment, was secretly deported to the west African state of Equatorial Guinea on January 31 from Zimbabwe, even though still appealing extradition.
"The current detention of Simon Mann is illegal in law," said local attorney Ponciano Mbomio Nvo, assigned to Mann's defence, claiming he had not even been given access to the file on the accused.
Mann, 55, was arrested with 61 others when their plane landed at Harare in 2004, accused of stopping off for weapons from Harare while en route to Malabo allegedly to oust the leadership of Equatorial Guinea.
Mann claimed the group were en route 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 in Zimbabwe, but the term was reduced.
"Ever since I was asked to take the case on February 25, I have not ever had the slightest contact with Simon Mann," said Mbomio, the lawyer. "They won't let me see him or talk to him."
At this stage in proceedings, Mann "should not be in police detention," he told AFP. "He ought to have already been interviewed by an examining magistrate, but the magistrate told me he had not yet even received the file."
"I applied to the magistrate dealing with the case, but he told me he did not know what to do about my application because the file on Mann had not yet been submitted to him.
"Neither have I myself received the file to examine it."
The authorities here had repeatedly said the trial would be held at an early date.
Last month Equatorial Guinea issued an international arrest warrant for Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, accusing him of being an instigator of the abortive coup plot.
Thatcher, 54, pleaded guilty in South Africa in 2005 to violating anti-mercenary laws in that country, saying he had unwittingly helped plotters against Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.