Zim 62: 'Cat and mouse game'
2005-05-13 14:49
Harare - A lawyer for alleged mercenaries who have completed their prison term in Zimbabwe accused President Robert Mugabe's government on Friday of playing "cat and mouse game" with his clients by continually stalling their release.
The men waited for a fourth consecutive day at Harare's Chikurubi prison after High Court records indicated they had completed their sentence.
"It looks like this is a cat and mouse game situation," said Jonathan Samkange, a lawyer for the men. "My clients are all dressed up in their own clothes very cheerfully ready to leave but they are getting anxious."
Their scheduled release and deportation was stalled first while officials went to film for identity pictures and then by the government's refusal to let them board a rented bus.
The 62 men allegedly were embroiled in an aborted plot to overthrow Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
The men, who were arrested in March 2004 when their Boeing 727 landed at Harare, completed yearlong sentences and were discharged from prison on Thursday, but held overnight at the prison awaiting arrangements for their deportation.
Remaining at the prison were the two pilots of the aircraft, serving 16-month sentences for breaching aviation regulations, and former British Special Air Service soldier Simon Mann, completing a four-year sentence for attempting to buy weapons from a Zimbabwe state-owned defence company without a license.
Air transport ruled out
The government, which at first told a lawyer for the men to hire a bus for their deportation, changed its mind on Friday and said they could not board the bus because it would be a security risk.
"That is wasted money, but it is part of the game," said Samkange. He was not told how the men would be taken to South Africa by the government, but air transport was ruled out because of the alleged security risk.
"I cannot put my head on the block and say they will be released today but they cannot be kept any longer at Chikurubi because they are not in holding cells, they are in their own plain clothes and that is causing a lot of confusion," he said.
For much of Thursday the men were left in limbo outside the gates of the maximum security section, after formal release and return of their civilian clothes and belongings.
Samkange said the 62 had been "in a very, very anxious" state.
President Obiang's government had sought to have the men sent to Equatorial Guinea where they faced summary execution. Equatorial Guinea has sentenced 24 other suspected mercenaries from European and African nations to lengthy prison terms.
Sir Mark Thatcher, formerly resident in Cape Town and the son of retired British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, pleaded guilty last year in a South African court to unwittingly helping to bankroll the coup attempt.
- AP