August 27
SOUTH AFRICA:
S.Africa Says No Extradition Request for Thatcher
South Africa has not received an official request from Equatorial Guinea
for the extradition of Mark Thatcher, who is suspected of involvement in a
coup bid in the oil-rich country, officials said on Friday. P> "We have no
official request for extradition," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ronnie
Mamoepa said.
The 51-year-old son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was
arrested at his Cape Town home on Wednesday and later released on 2
million rand ($300,000) bail.
Thatcher, who faces charges of violating South Africa's strict
anti-mercenary laws, has been ordered to stay in the Cape Town area until
a November court appearance.
A lawyer for Equatorial Guinea's government said on Wednesday the country
had made "first contact" with South Africa in a bid to extradite Thatcher,
who South African police suspect of helping to finance the failed coup
bid.
"The process for requesting extradition has started. There has been a
first contact, an initial expression of interest from the government of
Equatorial Guinea to South Africa," the lawyer, Lucie Bourthoumieux told
Reuters.
"Now we have to wait for the response. This is really just the start of
the process," the lawyer added.
Prosecutors in Equatorial Guinea, where 14 suspected foreign mercenaries
are on trial for plotting a coup, have demanded the death penalty for one
of the men, South African Nick du Toit.
Thatcher protests his innocence but is under what amounts to house arrest
pending posting of bail. If he were extradited he could also theoretically
face the death penalty if found guilty.
MARGARET THATCHER DISTRESSED
Margaret Thatcher arrived back in London on Friday after breaking off her
American holiday following her son's arrest.
After arriving on a scheduled flight, she was escorted directly to a
waiting limousine, avoiding a crowd of reporters waiting for her and
making no statement.
A family spokesman said she was "distressed" but confident about South
Africa's legal process. "She's sure that he'll be cleared and named
innocent at the end of it," said Lord Bell, a family friend.
South Africa abolished the death penalty with the end of apartheid in 1994
and has said it would not extradite any suspect to a country where they
could face execution.
A total of 84 foreigners, mostly South Africans, are on trial
simultaneously in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea on charges of involvement
in an attempted coup.
Sentencing was expected on Friday for the Zimbabwe defendants, who include
former British special forces officer Simon Mann, said to be Thatcher's
main contact within the group.
A spokesman for South Africa's FBI-style Scorpions unit said investigators
were concentrating on their own case.
"We know that Equatorial Guinea is very interested in him, and our advice
to them would always be that they must go through the proper channels and
procedures," spokesman Sipho Ngwema said.
"We are concentrating on what he has done in our country ... any requests
from anywhere else will be dealt with in the normal way," he said on SABC
radio.
(source: Reuters)
