August 23
EQUATORIAL GUINEA:
'Mercenary' trial opens in Malabo
14 suspected mercenaries went on trial in Equatorial Guinea Monday accused
of plotting to topple the oil-rich nation's president with the help of 70
men detained in Zimbabwe, officials said.
The 8 South Africans and six Armenians were arrested in March and accused
of going to Equatorial Guinea's capital Malabo as an advance party to
prepare the ground for the arrival of a plane with the second group of men
and weapons.
An official at the justice ministry said the trial had opened Monday
morning in Malabo in a conference hall specially prepared for the
hearings.
The trial is expected to last three days, with the verdict due over the
weekend. While the maximum penalty for the charges is the death penalty,
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has said the defendants will not
be executed.
"The president ... has assured that those being judged in Malabo will not
risk the death penalty, which is applied, according to him, 'when a crime
is carried out, not when the accused are still at the planning stage',"
Information Ministry official Minko Mezui told Reuters Monday.
Obiang, who seized power in a 1979 coup, has said foreign countries and
companies were conspiring to replace him with Severo Moto, who heads a
government-in-exile in Spain.
Equatorial Guinea, a country split between volcanic islands and a
mountainous jungle mainland, is sub-Saharan Africa's 3rd biggest oil
producer after Nigeria and Angola.
The discovery of massive oil reserves has boosted the economy by as much
as 70 percent a year but critics say the wealth has not been evenly shared
and human rights groups have accused Obiang of using imprisonment and
torture to subdue opposition parties.
Equatorial Guinea's state television aired an interview with one of those
detained, South African Nick du Toit, in which he said he belonged to a
group of mercenaries hired by Moto to oust Obiang, according to diplomats
who witnessed the interview.
Military sources in South Africa say du Toit is a former member of a South
African reconnaissance unit and that he had worked in Sierra Leone with
defunct mercenary group Executive Outcomes -- founded by the leader of the
men on trial in Zimbabwe, Simon Mann.
Officials in both Zimbabwe and the former Spanish colony say the two
groups were working together and the plot was foiled when Zimbabwe swooped
on the main body of men after their plane landed to collect weapons at
Harare's airport.
A German citizen arrested in Malabo along with du Toit died of cerebral
malaria shortly after being detained, according to diplomats in Malabo.
(source: Reuters)
