Sir Mark Thatcher was today placed under house arrest after being charged in South Africa with bankrolling an alleged abortive coup in the tiny oil-rich West African state of Equatorial Guinea.
Dressed in a black suit, Sir Mark, 51, appeared before a magistrate in Cape Town several hours after a dawn raid on his home by an elite South African anti-fraud squad. He was charged with violating a South African law banning mercenary activities.
His lawyer, Peter Hodes, said that he was arrested on suspicion of providing financing for a helicopter linked to the coup plot and would plead not guilty. The charges carry a maximum jail term of 15 years.
But in a bizarre twist to a dramatic day for the millionaire son of Baroness Thatcher, the court hearing had to be delayed because Sir Mark was robbed of his shoes, jacket and mobile phone in a crowded holding cell.
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When proceedings did start, Sir Mark did not appear to have been injured and he was granted bail on condition that he pays two million rand (£167,000) by September 8. He is due to return to court on November 25 and will report daily to authorities after surrendering his passport and any air tickets that he had.
The magistrate, A P Kotze, said: “I am not going to read all the bail conditions as your legal counsel has requested but if you fail to comply with the conditions you know the consequences.”
The day began for Sir Mark at 7am with his arrest by members of the FBI-style Scorpions unit while he was still in his pyjamas at his exclusive mansion in the Cape Town suburb of Constantia.
A Scorpions spokesman, Sipho Ngwema, said: “We have evidence, credible evidence, and information that he was involved in the attempted coup.
“We refuse to allow South Africa to be a springboard for coups in Africa and elsewhere.”
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The trial of 18 men, eight South Africans, six Armenians and four Equatorial Guineans, accused of plotting the alleged coup opened in Malabo, the Equatorial Guinean capital, on Monday.
The men were arrested in early March for conspiring to topple President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has been regularly accused of both torture and corruption during his 25-year-rule. Another defendant, a German, died in custody.
Two days earlier Zimbabwean authorities had detained 70 suspected mercenaries at Harare airport after a tip-off from the South African Government.
The 18 men on trial in Malabo, led by a South African arms dealer, Nick du Toit, are accused of being an advance group responsible for the preparations of the coup d’etat before the arrival of the main group, who took off from South Africa and stopped in Harare to pick up weapons.
Mr Du Toit told a Malabo court yesterday that he had been in charge of logistics for an attempted putsch and had accepted the job at the request of Simon Mann, an Eton-educated former SAS captain who founded mercenary firm Executive Outcomes.
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Mr Mann is one of those being tried in Harare, where he has pleaded guilty to attempting to possess dangerous weapons. He denies involvement in the alleged plot.
Prosecutors say that the alleged plotters wanted to install the exiled opposition leader, Severo Moto, in place of Mr Obiang. Mr Moto has lived in Madrid since being found guilty of treason after another failed coup in 1995.
After news of Sir Mark’s arrest today, Mr du Toit was recalled to give evidence and confirmed that he met Sir Mark in July 2003 to discuss the sale of some military helicopters. He said that he was introduced to him by Mr Mann.
But Mr du Toit denied that Sir Mark had been involved in any plot against Equatorial Guinea and said he had just wanted to buy two Mi-8 helicopters for a mining operation in Sudan. “This was a normal business deal,” he said.
An Equatorial Government lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the country might apply for Sir Mark’s extradition because it was keen to see all involved brought to justice “however highly placed they may be”. But the country’s Justice Minister, Robert Mengue, played down that prospect. “Let’s first give an opportunity to the South African authorities and the South African legal system to handle the situation,” he told the BBC.
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Equatorial Guinea comprises several small islands off the coast of Cameroon and a small strip of the mainland between Cameroon and Gabon. Traditionally one of Africa’s poorest countries, its economy has been transformed since the discovery of oil reserves in the mid-1990s.
A spokesman for Baroness Thatcher said that she was on holiday in the United States and would not be commenting on today’s arrest.
Sir Mark has acknowledged that he is a friend of Mr Mann, who also lives in the Constantia suburb at the foot of Table Mountain. Mr Mann is alleged to be the leader of the Zimbabwean group.
Although he has pleaded guilty to one weapons charge, he has rejected a second charge of purchasing weapons, saying that the deal never went through. He also denied the coup plot charges.
South African media reports say Mr Mann tried to smuggle letters out of his Harare cell appealing for help from a man called “Scratcher” - believed to be Mr Mann’s nickname for Sir Mark.