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67 Won�t Face Coup Charges in Africa Plot, Zimbabwe Says
March 18, 2004
By MICHAEL WINES
MALABO, Equatorial Guinea, March 17 - A lawyer for 67 men
being held in Zimbabwe and accused of a coup attempt in
Equatorial Guinea said Wednesday that the men had been
charged with conspiring to murder a foreign leader.
But Zimbabwean prosecutors denied that, saying their
country's laws did not cover such an offense.
The confusion over the charges was the latest twist in a
bizarre case that began when a Boeing 727, its cabin lights
darkened, landed at Harare's international airport 10 days
ago.
Officials from Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea have accused
the men aboard, mostly from southern Africa, of plotting to
overthrow the president of Equatorial Guinea in exchange
for oil rights and $1.8 million.
By some accounts, the group stopped in Harare, the
Zimbabwean capital, to buy weapons from the state-owned
Zimbabwe Defense Industries.
Zimbabwean officials said that an ex-British officer led
the group and that American, British and Spanish
intelligence agencies had backed the coup attempt - charges
the United States and Britain strenuously denied.
The lawyer for the men, Jonathan Samkange, said the
conspiracy charges were filed Tuesday. But Zimbabwe's
attorney general, Bharat Patel, said the only charges the
men faced were violating firearms, immigration and public
order statutes. The most serious of those charges carries a
prison term of 10 years. Mr. Patel said the county had no
legal power to prosecute mercenaries who plot against
foreign leaders.
At a news conference today in the Moorish-style Palace of
the Peoples in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea's president,
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, said that the coup attempt
remained under investigation.
Fifteen men, said to be the coup's advance brigade, were
arrested there about two weeks ago. Mr. Obiang said
security, already among the tightest in Africa, had been
further strengthened after the attempted overthrow.
He played down suggestions that the United States or France
had backed a coup attempt, saying his country would make no
accusation of guilt unless it had solid evidence.
But he repeated claims that an opposition leader now living
in Spain, Severo Moto Nsa, was involved in the plot. And he
expressed anger that Spain, which ruled Equatorial Guinea
as a colony until 1968, had so far refused to turn over Mr.
Moto.
"We have certainly mentioned Spain," he said. "And it is
because the known terrorist Severo Moto who is behind this
plot resides in Spain."
Mr. Obiang, who has weathered a number of coup attempts in
recent years, said he was unruffled by what appeared to be
another one. "I am very fine. I am happy," he said. "My
morale is high."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/international/africa/18AFRI.html?ex=1080644317&ei=1&en=39a200dfc03a55ec
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