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Mercenaries to be grilled on coup in Equatorial Guinea

South African investigators are to grill 61 freed suspected mercenaries to try to find out who was behind an alleged coup in Equatorial Guinea.

The men, who arrived in South Africa on Sunday after spending more than a year in Zimbabwe's notorious Chikurubi prison over their alleged involvement in a failed putsch, will be questioned in a few days, possibly this week.

."What we really would like to ascertain is the identity of the kingpins," Makhosini Nkosi said, a spokesman for South Africa's FBI-style Scorpions investigating unit.

The 61, along with Briton Simon Mann, were arrested on March 7 last year after their plane landed in Harare, allegedly to pick up weapons for a coup to oust Equatorial Guinea's longtime leader President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and replace him with exiled opposition leader Severo Moto. At their trial, which opened on July 27, they maintained that they were en route to the Democratic Republic of Congo to guard diamond mines and that the weapons to be picked up in Harare were for that operation.

Mark Thatcher, accused of partly financing the alleged plot, denied knowledge of it but pleaded guilty in South Africa to violating its anti-mercenary law in January. The son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher paid a three million rand (US$505,000-dollar) fine.
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