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Court allows Zimbabwe government to contest mercenaries' early relea

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  • Court allows Zimbabwe government to contest mercenaries' early relea

    Court allows Zimbabwe government to contest mercenaries' early release

    Agence France Presse -- English
    March 23, 2005 Wednesday

    HARARE March 23 -- Zimbabwe's supreme court Wednesday allowed its
    government to contest a decision by a lower court for the early
    release of 62 suspected mercenaries jailed over a coup plot in oil-rich
    Equatorial Guinea.

    "Chief Justice (Godfrey) Chidyausiku has granted the prosecution
    leave to appeal," the men's lawyer Julia Woods told AFP.

    "This means the state will now be able to appeal."

    The Harare high court three weeks ago slashed the alleged coup
    plotters' one-year sentences to eight months, which they are serving
    in a top security jail outside Harare.

    Lawyers said the men were to be released after the high court ruling
    but the state then objected, saying foreigners were not entitled to
    suspended sentences.

    "You can't suspend a portion of a sentence imposed on a foreigner
    because it serves no purpose, you are not able to monitor that they
    will comply with the order of good behaviour," said director of
    prosecutions Joseph Musakwa.

    Convicted persons are eligible to a remission of a third of their
    sentences in Zimbabwe on condition they do not commit a similar
    offence within a specified period.

    The group had been preparing to leave Chikurubi prison -- where they
    have been held following their arrest in early March last year --
    for deportation to Pretoria.

    The 62 are part of a group of 70 men arrested on March 7 at Harare
    International airport when their plane stopped over to collect weapons
    which they maintain were to be used in guarding mines in the Democratic
    Republic of Congo.

    But Zimbabwean and South African authorities believed the men were
    on their way to Equatorial Guinea to topple long-time leader Teodoro
    Obiang Nguema.

    Their leader, Briton Simon Mann, is serving a four-year sentence
    after his seven-year jail term was later reduced, while two pilots
    who flew the plane to Harare to collect arms got 16 months on various
    convictions for violation of immigration and firearm laws.

    Although they were all travelling on South African passports when
    they were arrested, they are believed to have been from different
    countries including Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

    British businessman Mark Thatcher, who was accused of partly financing
    the alleged plot, was recently convicted by a South African court
    for violating its anti-mercenary laws and paid a three-million-rand
    (380,000 euros/505,000 dollars) fine.

    In November a court in Equatorial Guinea gave stiff jail sentences
    to five alleged South African and six Armenian mercenaries, including
    34 years for South African Nick du Toit.
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