emad aisat sana (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-01-04 09:47 AM
Original message
‘Case grows’ against Thatcher: new details emerge
The Times
From Xan Rice in Johannesburg
Snip
A KEY witness in the alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea is said to have struck a deal with the South African authorities that will significantly strengthen their case against Sir Mark Thatcher. Crause Steyl, who owns an aviation firm in the Free State province, said that he received $250,000 (£140,000) from the former Prime Minister’s son shortly before the bungled mission in March.The money was transferred to a company run by Simon Mann, the former SAS soldier accused of organising the operation to overthrow the Government of the oil-rich country.
A senior police source confirmed yesterday that Mr Steyl was providing evidence that would bolster their case against Sir Mark. “This is a very sensitive part of our investigation. Mr Steyl is himself under investigation, but he is co-operating fully and has given us good information,” the source said. “There will be a lot more to come.”
Prosecutors believe that Sir Mark’s money was used to hire the Boeing 727 that stopped to pick up weapons at Harare Airport on March 7. The 67 suspected mercenaries on board, including Mr Steyl’s brother Jaapniel who was piloting the aircraft, were arrested.
Sir Mark has maintained that the payment to Mr Steyl’s Triple A Aviation was an investment in an air ambulance service to be set up in West Africa. However, Mr Steyl is understood to have told the police that Sir Mark knew all along that the money would be passed to Mr Mann and used to fund the coup. Mr Steyl could not be reached for comment yesterday.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1241218,00.ht... Pinochet: P2 rent boy 30 years in arrears
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Du Toit may be pardoned in return for 'co-operation' seemslikeadream Sep-01-04 09:56 AM #1
Maybe...."President Obiang wants to see you.’.... emad aisat sana Sep-01-04 10:05 AM #2
Thanks - I'm adding this to my Equatorial Guinea thread. Pallas180 Sep-01-04 10:45 AM #4
Mark Thatcher: the Money Trail seemslikeadream Sep-01-04 10:08 AM #3
seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-01-04 09:56 AM
Response to Original message
1. Du Toit may be pardoned in return for 'co-operation'
Du Toit may be pardoned in return for 'co-operation'
By Kim Sengupta
31 August 2004
One of the men accused of masterminding the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea could be pardoned, the country's government said yesterday, after a court in the capital Malabo postponed his sentencing to examine Sir Mark Thatcher's alleged links to the plot.
Ricardo Obama Nfube, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that Nick du Toit may receive mercy in exchange for co-operation with the authorities. He also stated that Equatorial Guinea had asked for international arrest warrants to be issued for Sir Mark, who was arrested at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, last week.
The trial of Mr Du Toit and 18 other men accused of being mercenaries planning to carry out a coup in Equatorial Guinea resumed yesterday, with the focus moving to the alleged role of Sir Mark. Mr Du Toit has claimed that Sir Mark was at a planning meeting for the coup to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang. Sir Mark has denied any involvement in the coup.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?st... Alert Printer Friendly | Reply | Top
emad aisat sana (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-01-04 10:05 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Maybe...."President Obiang wants to see you.’....
President Obiang wants to see you.’ There were no discussions, only orders
By David Lister
The Times
What a difference a day makes. On Monday our correspondent was ordered out of court, yesterday he was invited to meet Equatorial Guinea’s rulerPresident Teodoro Obiang Nguema during his brief statement to the press in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. Photograph by Richard Pohle IT ALL began with a telephone call. “You must come downstairs now,” said the receptionist, his bold voice failing to disguise his nervousness. “I have here a message for you from the President.” Barely 24 hours after being ejected from one of his courts for taking notes, The Times was yesterday part of a small group of journalists ushered through the gold-embossed gates of the colonial-style palace of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
This time there was none of the usual dithering inefficiency that accompanies encounters with officialdom across sub-Saharan Africa. At 2.30pm all foreign journalists in Equatorial Guinea, most of them here to report on the trial of 14 suspected foreign mercenaries implicated in a coup attempt allegedly financed by Sir Mark Thatcher, were summoned to one of the country’s crumbling old hotels. There had been rumours all weekend that President Obiang, a ruthless dictator said to eat the testicles of his political opponents, wanted to address the media, no doubt to reaffirm his shaky grip on power after whispers about his health and suggestions that it may not be too long before there is another attempt to topple him.
Only last week a German visitor was slung in a cockroach-infested jail in Malabo, the capital, for venturing too close to the presidential palace, while on Monday I was forced to tear a page from my notebook after taking notes at the trial of the alleged mercenaries. After deciding to leave the courtroom, I was prevented from going anywhere by a glazed-eyed soldier at the gate. Thirty minutes earlier he had refused me entrance to the compound, but now he was equally adamant. “You are to stay here,” he said, spilling whisky from a flask as he gesticulated wildly. These are paranoid times in a country said to have an army of only 1,400 men to guard offshore oil reserves that are generating more than 350,000 barrels per day. It is no surprise if the President, who at the weekend took possession of a brand-new $55 million (£30.5 million) private jet, feels a little jittery.
Yesterday, however, I walked through the gates of a building that most of Equatorial Guinea’s 500,000 population can only dream of entering. In a transformation that was extraordinary even by the standards of this bizarre, oil-rich nation, within a day The Times had gone from being persona non grata to honoured guest. As we arrived at Plaza de la Independecia, where a bust of the President sits in the middle of the square above the title “El Libertador”, dozens of armed soldiers sealed off the surrounding streets. Outside the colonnaded palace, inherited from the country’s former Spanish rulers, Moroccan bodyguards in black suits stood next to a pair of black Mercedes-Benz bearing the presidential number plates “PR” and “PR-004”.There was no discussion, only orders. “This is not a press conference. He will say welcome and thank you. If you are not happy, you will take the door,” explained an adviser as reporters were led into a grand entrance hall where gold statues of two eagles perched at the bottom of a wide marble staircase. Red carpet covered the ornate mosaic floor, while on a wall above the entrance were the Spanish words “Unidad, Paz, Justicia” — “Unity, Peace, Justice”. Some of us had deluded ourselves into believing that the President might take questions, when at 2.56pm a whisper of “C’est le President!” swept the room.
The Moroccan bodyguards, lent to the President by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, glanced furtively across the courtyard. More than a dozen soldiers put their hands on their weapons as besuited lackeys poured out of a side door. Even the country’s unflappable Security Minister, in a uniform bedecked with medals, appeared uneasy as he snapped to attention. Then a lean, bespectacled man walked slowly towards a velvet and gold podium and began talking in Spanish in a voice that was almost inaudible. The 62-year-old leader, whose wealth can only be guessed at, appeared anything but the savage his enemies depict him. An earnest-looking, immaculately dressed man, he appeared every inch the statesman in his blue suit and tie. “I want to thank you all for coming here,” he said, a translator standing by his side. As we strained to listen to every word, he said that the coup attempt in March, over which nearly 90 suspected mercenaries are now languishing in jails in Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe and South Africa, might have triggered a “macabre situation” and an ethnic conflict similar to that in Rwanda a decade ago. The mercenaries had intended to “carry out a crime against our country that would have resulted in blood being spilt”, he said. While it was not his place to comment before the court in Equatorial Guinea delivered a verdict in the case of the suspected foreign mercenaries, they would meet their “condemnation”, he added. After barely a dozen sentences and without taking questions, he looked up and spoke again: “That’s all I have to say for now. Thank you very much.” It was 2.59pm; just three minutes had passed. It was all over, and what had he actually said? With a speed that defied his age and rumours that he has prostate cancer, the President left. His lackeys were already rolling up the red carpet and we were being ushered back out of his inner sanctum. He was wise enough to offer us only a tantalising glimpse, the briefest of insights into his secretive world. And I know that, like all his downtrodden subjects in this tiny country, the next time I go anywhere near his palace I will probably be arrested.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1241219,0... Pinochet: P2 rent boy 30 years in arrears
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Pallas180 (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-01-04 10:45 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Thanks - I'm adding this to my Equatorial Guinea thread.
Edited on Wed Sep-01-04 10:46 AM by Pallas180
in General Discussion
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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Wed Sep-01-04 10:08 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. Mark Thatcher: the Money Trail
Banking records show Air Ambulance Africa paid $100 000 into Logo's account on March 2, days before the alleged coup attempt.
The head of Air Ambulance, Crause Steyl, this week refused to comment, saying: "Please don't call me any more."
Steyl's brother, Neil, piloted the Boeing 727 that carried the 70 alleged mercenaries currently held in Zimbabwe on arms charges. Still in custody in Harare, Neil Steyl formerly worked as a pilot for South African mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes in the 1990s, in which Mann was also involved.
Sources close to the investigation say Air Ambulance Africa provided a twin-engine King Air turboprop aircraft, which flew the exiled Equatorial Guinean opposition leader, Severo Moto, from Spain to Bamako in Mali on the eve of the alleged coup bid, apparently in preparation for his return to power.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200408270682.html