SA won't allow death penalty

2004-08-24 13:47

Johannesburg - South Africa said on Tuesday that it will intervene if its citizen Nick du Toit is sentenced to death in Equatorial Guinea on charges of plotting to topple its long-time leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Du Toit and 17 other alleged coup-plotters, including eight South Africans, went on trial in Malabo on Monday in connection with the alleged coup bid.

The prosecution called for the death penalty for Du Toit, the alleged group leader, and prison terms ranging from 26 years to 86 years for his co-defendants.

"The court has not handed down any judgment and therefore no sentence has been passed. The South African government will have to await the decision of the court on this matter before it can make any intervention if so required," foreign ministery spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa told AFP.

But he added: "Our constitution outlaws the death penalty and therefore our government will seek diplomatic intervention if the death penalty is handed down."

Du Toit told the court in Malabo on Monday that he had been in charge of logistics in the operation to and that he had been hired by Briton Simon Mann.

"I wasn't part of the operational group because my task was logistics, that's to say getting vehicles (to the airport)," said Du Toit, who runs a number of businesses in Equatorial Guinea.

Mann is the alleged leader of 70 other suspected mercenaries who were arrested in Zimbabwe on March 7, around the same time Du Toit and his colleagues were detained in Equatorial Guinea.

The men held in Zimbabwe have maintained that they were arrested while on their way to guard diamond mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

- AFP