Zim 70: SA won't intervene

2004-04-29 21:56

Johannesburg - The South African government will not intervene in Zimbabwe's extradition of a 70-strong alleged mercenary group, including 20 South Africans, to Equatorial Guinea, the foreign affairs department said on Thursday.

"There is no legal basis for South Africa to demand that its nationals should not be extradited to another country," the department said in a statement.

However, the government would continue to offer consular services to the men.

The West African country's president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, has previously said 15 men arrested in his country, who are alleged to have been in cohorts with the 70, faced capital punishment, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.

"If we have to kill them, we will kill them," said Obiang, whose 25-year rule was allegedly to have been ended by the groups in a coup.

The 70 men were all travelling on South African passports when they were arrested in Harare on March 7.

They deny they were involved in a plot to overthrow Obiang and take control of his oil-rich nation, allegedly ahead of the reinstatement of Francisco Macias Nguema, who was deposed in a coup by Obiang in the late 70s. They claimed they were on their way to the Democratic Republic of Congo to guard diamond mines.

Face trial in Equatorial Guinea

Foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the government could not comment further on the matter at this stage.

The AFP report quoted an unnamed official who confirmed that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe had has agreed to hand the men over to Equatorial Guinea.

The decision was taken following talks between Mugabe and Obiang in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo.

"The president agreed to extradite the 70 mercenaries so that they could go and face trial in Equatorial Guinea," the official, anonymous on request, said.

The foreign affairs department said both Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea were sovereign states with the necessary legal capacity to take legal decisions regarding matters affecting their states.

Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea were parties to the Organisation of African Union's Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa, which demands that the signatories extradite, or punish on their own soil, those who committed mercenary acts in the member countries.

- SAPA