The EG coup plot - a timeline
2009-11-03 14:05
Malabo - Equatorial Guinea has granted amnesty to Britain's Simon Mann and South African Nick Du Toit, two mercenaries convicted for an attempted coup plot in March 2004, national radio announced Tuesday.
Here are the main events surrounding the mercenary-engineered coup.
2004
- March 7, 2004: Some 70 suspected mercenaries are arrested in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. They include 67 who came in on a Boeing from South Africa. The three others, including Mann, were at the airport to meet them.
- March 9: The president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, announces that 15 mercenaries who planned to overthrow his regime have been arrested in Malabo.
He says that a Madrid-based opposition leader, Severo Moto, is behind the coup plot.
Zimbabwe says that the 70 men arrested in Harare had been due to join up with those arrested in Malabo.
- May 12: Zimbabwe prosecutors say that the mercenaries' leader had signed a contract with Moto to overthrow the Malabo regime.
- July 27: The trial of the 70 mercenaries starts in Harare.
- Aug 25: Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is charged in South Africa on suspicion of financing the coup. He is placed under house arrest. He denies any involvement.
In Malabo, the suspected leader of the mercenaries, the South African Nick du Toit, admits to meeting Thatcher but says the talks were only about business matters.
- Nov 26: The Malabo court sentences Moto to 63 years in prison and du Toit to 34 years.
2005
- Jan 13, 2005: Mark Thatcher pleads guilty in a South African court to financing the planned coup. He is given a four-year suspended prison sentence.
2008
- March 11, 2008: Mann is extradited from Zimbabwe to Equatorial Guinea. He admits his participation in the attempted coup but denies being the ringleader.
- March 29: Equatorial Guinea launches an international arrest warrant for Thatcher.
- June 17-20: The trial. Prosecutors call for a 31-year and eight month sentence for Mann.
- July 7: Mann is sentenced to 34 years and four months in prison.
2009
- November 3: Equatorial Guinea grants amnesty to the mercenaries.