'Coup plot': Thatcher son charged
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has been arrested and charged in South Africa with the financing of an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea.
Thatcher was arrested at his Cape Town home Wednesday and brought before the Wynberg Magistrate's Court to be formally charged with violating South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act.
"We have evidence, credible evidence, and information that he was involved in the attempted coup," police spokesman Sipho Ngwema told The Associated Press.
"We refuse that South Africa be a springboard for coups in Africa and elsewhere." Thatcher was placed under house arrest and has until September 8 to post 2 million rand ($297,460) bail.
Police with search warrants raided Thatcher's home in the upscale suburb of Constantia shortly after 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) Wednesday.
Thatcher's lawyer, Peter Hodes, told AP the 51-year-old businessman had been arrested on suspicion of providing financing for a helicopter linked to the coup plot.
Thatcher later issued a statement denying he had done anything wrong.
"I am innocent of all charges made against me. I have been and am cooperating fully with the authorities in order to resolve the matter," Thatcher said.
"I have no involvement in any alleged coup in Equatorial Guinea and I reject all suggestions to the contrary."
A spokesman for the British High Commission office in Pretoria told CNN that "normal consular assistance" will be offered to Thatcher.
"He is a private citizen arrested abroad, so we will aid him like any British national who is arrested in an overseas country," Nick Sheppard said.
"We can't comment on what help has been given or what help has been requested from the British government."
Sheppard said Thatcher's arrest would not have any impact on British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's visit to Cape Town Wednesday for talks with the South African government.
Equatorial Guinea put more than a dozen people on trial Monday in the alleged plot to topple the oil-rich nation's president. One other defendant died in custody under suspicious circumstances.
Seventy suspected mercenaries are on trial separately in Zimbabwe. (Full story)
The alleged ringleader of the plot, former British special forces soldier Simon Mann, was among those arrested March 7 in Zimbabwe, where authorities said they stopped a planeload of mercenaries going to Equatorial Guinea.
The men maintain they were headed to security jobs at a mining operation in Congo.
At the trial in Equatorial Guinea, one of the defendants testified Wednesday that Thatcher met with Mann in July 2003.
Nick du Toit, a South African arms dealer, said Thatcher expressed interest in buying military helicopters for a mining enterprise in Sudan, but described the meeting as a "normal business deal" unrelated to the alleged coup plot.
Thatcher studied accounting but then pursued an undistinguished career in motor racing. In January 1982, he was lost for six days during an auto rally across the Sahara Desert, causing his mother to weep in public for the first time.
Thatcher, whose mother was British prime minister from 1979-1990, inherited the title of Sir Mark on the death of his father Denis last year.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
