http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20050305102152302C38 6936
Scorpions waiting for freed 'mercenaries'
By Michael Schmidt
It's out of the fire and into the frying pan for the 64 alleged mercenaries who look
set to be released from Chikurubi Prison in Zimbabwe on Saturday.
After their arrival in South Africa the National Prosecuting Authority will question
them with a view to prosecuting them under South African anti-mercenary legislation.
South African intelligence agents, members of the priority crimes litigation unit of
the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and NPA investigators - probably from the
Directorate of Special Operations (the "Scorpions") - are likely to interrogate the
men on their return to South Africa about the thwarted plot to overthrow Equatorial
Guinea dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
'I don't want to celebrate until his feet are on South African soil'
The men were arrested in Harare in March last year, where the aircraft they were
travelling in, a Boeing 727, had landed, allegedly to pick up arms from a contact at
Zimbabwean Defence Industries to be used to overthrow Obiang.
"Our role is pretty clear," said NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi, "and that is,
where the law has been broken there has to be a prosecution.
"We need to look at the facts of the matter and, if there is a need to question them,
we will do that with a view to a possible prosecution. We're not going to prosecute
them in terms of the Zimbabwean laws because they have been prosecuted and punished
for that," Nkosi said.
He was referring to the 12-month sentence, reduced by high court order this week by
four months, that the 63 alleged mercenaries and flight engineer Ken Payne received
last year for contravening Zimbabwe's aviation, immigration and firearms laws.
"Instead, we will be looking at the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.
Immediately there is a suspicion they could have broken that law, we are going to be
investigating."
He stressed the men would not be picked up at the airport but would be interviewed
later.
Nkosi said the NPA was also weighing up whether or not to prosecute three other
alleged mercenaries: Mark Schmidt, Americo Riberio and Ablo Augusto, who were
acquitted by Equatorial Guinea after nine months in Black Beach prison.
The fact that acquittal under foreign laws does not mean suspects automatically
escape prosecution under South African law was shown by the case of three other men
who were originally among those arrested in Zimbabwe for their alleged role in the
Guinean coup.
Commercial pilot Crause Steyl was fined R200 000 or 10 years for having taken part in
the plot to overthrow Obiang.
Steyl was fined in line with a plea-bargain that had seen him give evidence against
financier Sir Mark Thatcher.
Two of Steyl's accomplices who had also given evidence against Thatcher after being
sent home from Zimbabwe, Lourens Horn and Harry Carlse, were each fined R75 000 or
four years for their part in the plot. Steyl, Horn and Carlse were additionally each
given four-year suspended sentences.
In January, Thatcher plea-bargained his own fate down to a R3-million fine and a
four-year suspended sentence for having financed a helicopter that was to have been
used in the coup.
Alwyn Griebenow, the Port Elizabeth lawyer acting for the men in Harare, admitted he
expected his clients to be grilled by intelligence agents and prosecuting authorities
on their return, saying he was negotiating this with the Scorpions.
Speaking from Harare on Friday, Payne's wife, Marge, said she was "very excited"
about her husband's imminent release; but there had been "so many ups and downs that
I don't want to celebrate until his feet are on South African soil".