EGuinea officials to question Thatcher, probe Armenian company over coup

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2004

MALABO (AFP) — A team of state prosecutors from Equatorial Guinea was to leave Malabo for South Africa to question Mark Thatcher over his alleged involvement in a complex bid to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, a government source said.

Another legal team from the tiny, oil-rich country on Africa's west coast was in Armenia to probe links between a local air transport company and the same alleged coup plot, a judicial official said Saturday.

Thatcher, 51, the millionaire son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was arrested in a dawn raid on his luxury Cape Town home on August 25 and charged with bankrolling a plot involving mercenaries to oust Obiang, in power in Equatorial Guinea since 1979.

"A delegation from the public ministry led by...