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Zim cops charge 'hired guns'
15/03/2004 18:09 - (SA)
Harare - Police in Zimbabwe on Monday completed charging 70 suspected mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea more than a week after their arrest at Harare International Airport, their lawyer said.
Jonathan Samkange said the men were now having their photographs and fingerprints taken by officials at Chikurubi maximum security prison in the capital. They are only likely to appear in court on Wednesday.
"Everyone has now been charged," Samkange said.
The group of 70 men, that included 67 aboard an impounded Boeing-727 and three men who came to meet the plane, have been accused by the Zimbabwe government of plotting to overthrow Equatorial Guinea's long-installed President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
The men are currently being held in prison under Zimbabwe's immigration laws, which allows authorities to keep suspects in custody for up to two weeks before bringing them to court.
Samkange said the process of fingerprinting and photographing his clients was time-consuming, and the men were only likely to appear at a Harare court on Wednesday at the earliest.
"There's no way we will be in court tomorrow (Tuesday)," he said.
On Sunday, the first batch of 60 suspects were charged with attempting to purchase firearms in Zimbabwe illegally, and with breaching immigration laws by failing to report to immigration officials on arrival in Zimbabwe.
The remaining 10 suspects were similarly charged on Monday, Samkange said. However, Simon Mann, one of the trio who went to meet the plane, and his two colleagues were charged with a single count each of purchasing firearms illegally.
According to Samkange police have said that Mann had purchased weapons and ammunition from the state-run Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI), which included AK 47s, pistols, rocket launchers and ammunition.
Last week Zimbabwe Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi claimed the men were on their way to oil-rich Equatorial Guinea to join other coup plotters planning to oust President Obiang and had landed in Zimbabwe to pick up their weapons.
The men deny the charges. They claim they were hired in South Africa to do security work at a diamond mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
- AFP
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