Son of 'Iron Lady' a coup plotter?
Former British PM Margaret Thatcher's son arrested in South Africa for possible connection to alleged coup plot.
It seems the
alleged plot has thickened.
After numerous rumors and allegations linking him to a plan to overthrow the leader of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, South African police have
arrested the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on suspicion of involvement in the plot.
Mark Thatcher was arrested Wednesday after a search of his Cape Town home. "We are investigating [Thatcher] on charges of contravening the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act. This is in relation to the possible funding and logistical assistance in relation to the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea," an anti-fraud unit spokesman, Makhonsini Nkosi, said.
"We have evidence, credible evidence, and information that he was involved in the attempted coup," police spokesman Sipho Ngwema told
The Associated Press. "We refuse that South Africa be a springboard for coups in Africa and elsewhere."
Thatcher has
posted bail.
BBC reports that Thatcher's lawyer, Peter Hodes, said his client had been held on suspicion of financing a helicopter linked to the coup plot and
intends to plead not guilty.
South Africa's deputy justice minister Johnny De Lange says
more arrests are likely, reports the
South African Broadcasting Corporation. Mr. De Lange expressed worry that there are more and more contraventions of the foreign military assistance act, and said the government has committed itself to reconstruct Africa, not destabilize it, reports
SABC.
Two groups of men arrested in March are on trial in Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe, charged with being mercenaries. A
BBC "Q&A" provides a
quick history of the alleged coup plot.
In March, Zimbabwean police in Harare impounded a plane which flew in from South Africa with 64 alleged mercenaries on board.
The group said they were providing security for a mine in Democratic Republic of Congo, but a couple of days later an Equatorial Guinean minister said they had detained 15 more men who were the advance party for the group captured in Zimbabwe.
Nick du Toit, the leader of the group of South Africans and Armenians in Equatorial Guinea, confirmed at his trial in Equatorial Guinea this week that he was playing a limited role in the bid.
He told the court he was recruited by Simon Mann, the alleged leader of the group held in Zimbabwe, and that he was helping with recruitment, acquiring weapons and logistics for the attempt. He says he was told they were trying to install an exiled opposition politician, Severo Moto, as head.
Simon Mann, a former officer of Britain's SAS special forces and founder of the mercenary firm
Executive Outcomes, is Thatcher's neighbor in the wealthy Cape Town district of Constantia. The
Daily Telegraph reports that Mann, the "scion of the Watneys brewing empire," and whose father captained the England cricket team in the late 1940s, has "spent his time in captivity reading the works of Shakespeare."
According to
The Guardian, most of Mann's 69 co-defendents are former soldiers who fought for South Africa's apartheid government.
The
Guardian cites a
March 31 letter from Mann in Zimbabwe's Chikurubi prison in which he told his wife and his legal team: "Our situation is not good and it is very URGENT. They [the lawyers] get no reply from Smelly and Scratcher [who] asked them to ring back after the Grand Prix race was over! ... We need heavy influence of the sort that ... Smelly, Scratcher ... [can bring] ... and it needs to be used heavily and now."
According to
The Guardian, "Scratcher is understood to be Mr. Thatcher and Smelly, Ely Calil, the Chelsea-based oil billionaire accused by Equatorial Guinea of helping to organize the coup."
The Daily Telegraph reported in late July that Thatcher had been receiving threatening phone calls from "
anonymous blackmailers" over his friendship with Mann. Thatcher, his wife, and other friends of Mann were harassed by men with South African accents demanding large sums of money, according to the report.
The would-be blackmailers are believed to be linked to Afrikaner members of the alleged mercenary gang who have fallen out with Mr. Mann since their arrest in Harare. ... The callers are thought to be attempting to extort money from Mr Mann's acquaintances in revenge for the falling out, but none is known to have paid. The
Telegraph report also cites an instance where a friend of Mann's was the "victim of an extortion attempt over afternoon tea at one of London's leading hotels."
According to the
BBC, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has accused the Spanish government, Mark Thatcher, oil tycoon Eli Calil, and Severo Moto (an exiled opposition politician living in Spain) of involvment in plotting the alleged coup. They
all deny involvement. He also accuses a former British cabinet minister, whom he refuses to name.
Equatorial Guinea became sub-Saharan Africa's
third largest oil producer since offshore development began there in the mid-1990s. Oil has made the small nation the fastest-growing economy in the world, with annual growth rates of up to 60 percent.
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