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Extradition hearing moved
13/04/2007 13:26 - (SA)
Harare - A Zimbabwean court on Friday postponed the extradition hearing of Briton Simon Mann over a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea to next week at a high security prison outside the capital, his lawyer said.
"The case has been remanded to Thursday next week and the hearing is going to take place at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison," lawyer Jonathan Samkange, told journalists after the case was postponed on Friday.
"Simon Mann will be testifying giving reasons why he is challenging the plans to extradite him. Basically he is saying he will not get a fair trial and he will be tortured like what happended to his co-accused if taken to Equatorial Guinea.
"The State fears if he is brought to this court he may fly away to England."
Mann and 61 other men were arrested when their plane landed at Harare international airport in March 2004.
They were said to have been stopping off to pick up weapons en route to Malabo to join an advance team led by South African Nick du Toit, who was himself arrested and then sentenced to 34 years in prison in Malabo.
The former officer in Britain's Special Air Service was handed a seven-year term for the purchase of weapons that prosecutors said were to be used to topple President Obiang Nguema, ruler of the oil-rich west African state since 1979.
The sentence was later cut to four years.
Most of those arrested with Mann were released from a Zimbabwean prison in 2005 and the Briton is due to be freed in May.
The case made headlines worldwide following the arrest in Cape Town in August 2004 of Mark Thatcher, the wealthy son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who allegedly helped bankroll the coup bid.
Thatcher eventually pleaded guilty in a South African court to unwittingly helping to finance the alleged coup and was fined some $510 000.
- AFP
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