SA 'won't ask for Zim 70'

2004-05-27 14:58

Pretoria - The South African government told a court on Thursday that it will not seek to extradite 70 suspected mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe on charges of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea.

Lawyers for the government argued before the Pretoria High Court that there was not enough evidence to prosecute the alleged soldiers of fortune in South Africa and that this admission in turn could lead to their release if they were to come home.

"They could come back and say 'you have no right to arrest us because you said in the high court that you don't have evidence to prosecute us'," said state advocate Ishmael Semenya.

The 70 men were arrested on March 7 in Harare after taking off in a private plane from South Africa and are now trying to get a court order to force the South African government to extradite them back here for trial.

They come from South Africa, Namibia and Angola but were all travelling on South African passports and were allegedly planning to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the long-time leader of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.

The group faces possible extradition to the tiny central African country on the Gulf of Guinea, where they could be sentenced to death along with 15 other alleged mercenaries who have been arrested on similar charges in the capital, Malabo.

Semenya told the court Thursday that the possibility of extradition to Equatorial Guinea was based on press reports from Zimbabwe.

The court on Monday started hearing lawyers representing the families of the suspected mercenaries who argued that South Africa has a responsibility to protect the men from extradition and a possible death penalty and should request that the men be sent back to South Africa.

Francois Joubert, acting on behalf of the families, pressed the court on Tuesday to ask South Africa to "take all reasonable and necessary steps" for the suspects to be extradited to South Africa to face trial.

Joubert said authorities in Harare would extradite the men to South Africa if Pretoria made a formal request.

"The consequences of them being tried in Equatorial Guinea would be dire," the SAPA news agency quoted Joubert as saying.

"There is a very real prospect that they will appear before courts which by any standards are not acceptable, and will then face the very real prospect of death there," he said.

- AFP