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Thatchers son held in failed african coup { August 26 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/international/africa/26thatcher.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/international/africa/26thatcher.html
August 26, 2004
Thatcher's Son Held in Failed Africa Coup
By MICHAEL WINES
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 25 - The son of Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, was arrested by South African police on Wednesday and charged with illegally helping to finance a failed coup in March against Equatorial Guinea's authoritarian ruler.
But in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, a South African arms dealer who is accused of taking part in the plot testified at his trial on Wednesday that he knew of no role in the scheme played by Lady Thatcher's son, Mark Thatcher.
Mr. Thatcher, 51, was detained early Wednesday by South Africa's special operations police, the Scorpions, as he left his home in Constantia, an exclusive Cape Town suburb, to drive his two children to school.
A spokesman for the Scorpions, Sipho Ngwema, said Mr. Thatcher was later arraigned on a charge of violating the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, which prohibits private military operations outside South Africa.
"He is suspected of financing the coup in Equatorial Guinea," Mr. Ngwema said in a telephone interview. "But remember, I am saying that there are allegations. He did not plead to the charge."
Mr. Ngwema said Mr. Thatcher was being "fully cooperative." He was released under house arrest and a requirement that he post bail of two million rand, or about $320,000, by Sept. 8.
Mr. Thatcher's spokesman, Lord Bell, released a statement in which Mr. Thatcher said he is "innocent of all charges made against me."
"I have no involvement in an alleged coup in Equatorial Guinea and I reject all suggestions to the contrary," the statement said.
Lady Thatcher, who led British politics from 1979 to 1990, was said to be vacationing in the United States and unavailable for comment.
The spectacular collapse last March of the coup in tiny Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest oil producer and among its most rigid dictatorships, has roiled South Africa for months. Most of the accused participants are either South Africans or holders of South African passports.
Mr. Thatcher is a friend of Simon Mann, a veteran of British special military operations who is accused of organizing the coup attempt. Mr. Mann, who has run private military companies in South Africa and Britain, was among 70 suspected mercenaries arrested March 6 in Zimbabwe after their jet stopped in Harare on a flight from South Africa, apparently to pick up a cache of arms.
At the same time, the police in Malabo arrested 19 foreigners, many of them South Africans, and charged them with plotting a coup against the nation's strongman, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. One of the arrested men, a German, has since died in an Equatorial Guinea prison of what officials said was cerebral malaria.
Mr. Obiang, Equatorial Guinea's ruler since overthrowing and executing his uncle in 1979, recently told a French publication, Jeune Afrique/L'Intelligent, that "certain elements also indicate that Thatcher and a former Thatcher cabinet minister whom I cannot name handled the financial planning of the coup."
Mr. Thatcher told The Daily Telegraph in London last month that he knows Mr. Mann, but he declined further comment. The 89 suspected mercenaries have long denied that they were seeking to overthrow Mr. Obiang, saying they had been hired to provide security for gold-mining operations in the Congo Republic, southeast of Equatorial Guinea.
But in the Malabo trial, a South African arms dealer named Nick du Toit, identified as a key figure in the coup, admitted to the plot this week. He testified that Mr. Mann had offered him $1 million to provide invading mercenaries with vehicles, logistical support and information on the locations of Mr. Obiang and other key officials.
In testimony on Wednesday, wire services reported, Mr. du Toit stated that he was present in July 2003 at a meeting with Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Mann that Mr. Mann had arranged. But Mr. Thatcher was interested only in purchasing military helicopters for a mining operation in Sudan, Mr. du Toit testified.
Asked whether the meeting dealt with the plot, Mr. du Toit replied, "This was a normal business deal."
Mr. Thatcher, who turned 51 on Aug. 15, first gained public attention in 1982, when he vanished in the Sahara for six days while attempting the Paris-to-Dakar road rally. The incident moved his notoriously rigid mother to public tears before searchers found him and his car, disabled by a broken axle.
Mr. Thatcher later moved to the United States and married a Texan, Diane Burgdorf, in 1987. After what news reports have called mixed success in business, the couple and their two children moved to Cape Town in 1995.
His arrest came as Britain's foreign minister, Jack Straw, arrived in Cape Town for talks with South Africa's foreign minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. A spokesman for the British High Commission said that Mr. Straw was informed of the arrest but that it would have no impact on the discussions.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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