Home > E. Guinea Requests International Arrest Warrants for Mark Thatcher
E. Guinea Requests International Arrest Warrants for Mark Thatcher
by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 1 September 2004EQUATORIAL Guinea has requested international arrest warrants for Mark Thatcher - son of ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - and other Britons implicated in an alleged coup plot in the oil-rich West African nation, officials said yesterday.
"We have asked for international arrest warrants for all responsible in this coup d’etat," Equatorial Guinean Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Mangue Obama Nfube said at a Press briefing in Malabo, the country’s capital.
Nfube named 51-year-old Mark Thatcher, financier Eli Calil and Simon Mann, convicted on Friday in Zimbabwe, in an arms deal connected with the alleged coup attempt.
However, Nfube denied a statement by a lawyer for Equatorial Guinea’s government who said on Friday that the government had asked for Thatcher’s extradition from South Africa.
Thatcher was arrested last Wednesday at his Cape Town home accused of contributing US$275 000 to an alleged plot to install a new regime in Equatorial Guinea.
Eighty-eight men are in custody in Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe and South Africa for their alleged involvement in the plot to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the country for 25 years.
Mann was last Friday convicted of contravening the Firearms Act by conspiring to buy weapons without end user certificates.
He pleaded guilty to the charges before Harare provincial magistrate Mr Mishrod Guvamombe.
Mann, a former member of Britain’s elite Special Air Service commando unit, has also pleaded guilty to contravening the Public Order and Security Act for attempting to possess dangerous weapons.
He will be sentenced on September 10.
The case has also sucked in Thatcher, who was arrested at his home in Cape Town last Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in the alleged coup against Equatorial Guinea.
Thatcher was granted bail with stringent conditions, including the surrender of his passport. - New Ziana-Xinhua-Herald Reporter.