CAPE TOWN, 26 August 2004 — The son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was charged in a South African court yesterday of bankrolling a coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea that led to the arrest of dozens of suspected mercenaries five months ago.
Mark Thatcher, 51, a millionaire businessman, appeared in court after investigators raided his home in the Cape Town suburb of Constantia, armed with an arrest warrant for the British national under South Africa’s Foreign Military Assistance Act banning mercenary activities.
“We have a serious case against him. We have found information that he funded the alleged coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea,” said Sipho Ngwema, spokesman for the Scorpions elite investigating unit.
Thatcher said he is innocent of charges against him of bankrolling a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea, his spokesman told Britain’s Press Association.
Dressed in a black suit, Thatcher appeared before a magistrate who posted bail at two million rand ($300,000, 248,000 euros) and set Nov. 25 as the date for the next court appearance. Thatcher has been linked to one of the alleged masterminds of the coup plot, Simon Mann, who is currently on trial in Zimbabwe in connection with the attempt to topple veteran President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Malabo. Mann, who is also Thatcher’s neighbor in Constantia, and 69 other men were arrested in Harare in March over the alleged plot at about the same time as 15 other suspected foreign mercenaries were detained in Malabo, accused of being the advance party for the operation.
Eight South Africans and six Armenians, as well as four nationals from Equatorial Guinea, have been on trial in Malabo since Monday for the alleged coup plot. The trial in Harare is due to resume tomorrow.
Yesterady, the South African leader of the suspected coup plotters on trial in Equatorial Guinea admitted to having met Thatcher in July 2003 to discuss the sale of helicopters for mining operations to Sudan.
“We talked strictly about business issues concerning the sale and purchase of helicopters,” said Nick du Toit, who faces a possible death sentence for leading the alleged botched coup. Thatcher’s arrest came a few hours before British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrived in Cape Town, leading the biggest delegation ever to South Africa for two days of talks aimed at putting relations with Pretoria on a stronger footing.
South African investigators said they considered the arrest of Thatcher, who has been living in South Africa since 1995, as a serious matter that underscored Pretoria’s commitment to stamp out mercenary activities.
“This is a matter we consider to be very serious because South Africa is playing a very meaningful role in peacekeeping in the African continent and people who ... use this country as a base to destabilize other countries in Africa frustrate the efforts of our government,” said Makhosini Nkosi, another spokesman for the Scorpions.
“It’s not in the interests of South Africa to be in a continent which is mired in coups.”
Thatcher, who lives with his Texan wife and two children in the picturesque seaside city, was in his pajamas when investigators swooped down on his luxurious two-story thatched-roof home early yesterday.
“He was shocked, he was surprised to see us,” Ngwema added. In an interview given to a British daily last month, Thatcher admitted that he was friends with Mann, who allegedly smuggled a letter out of his Harare cell requesting help from “Scratcher”, said to be code for his surname.
