SA 'mercenary' arrested
2003-07-27 13:42
Johannesburg - A South African man has been arrested at the Johannesburg International Airport in connection with contravening the Foreign Military Assistance Act, Scorpions spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said on Sunday.
The man, who lives in Cape Town, is to appear before a magistrate on Monday.
The Act prohibits South African citizens from aiding parties in other conflicts without government approval.
The man is alleged to have recruited mercenaries fighting in the Ivory Coast.
Ngwema said the 44-year-old man was arrested on Saturday afternoon when he flew in to South Africa from Harare, Zimbabwe.
Agence France Presse reports that the Ivory Coast, a former French colony that was once a model of stability in west Africa, descended into civil war last September, when renegade troops mainly from the predominantly Muslim north staged a rebellion.
On July 4, the warring parties formally declared the war over, after three erstwhile rebel groups joined a unity government in line with a French-brokered peace accord reached in January.
The government is now seeking to disarm and demobilise the combatants and reintegrate rebel-held territory with the rest of the west African country, the world's top cocoa producer, where regional and French peacekeepers are deployed.
- SAPA