[I was totally stunned by this news. Jan]

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South African police have arrested the son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on suspicion of involvement in a mercenary plot to topple the government of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.

Thatcher was taken to a Cape Town court to face charges in connection with the alleged coup plot after police searched his home in an upscale suburb at the foot of Table Mountain.

“This man has a very serious case to answer in court,” said Makhosini Nkosi, a spokesman for the FBI-style Scorpions unit as police arrived to arrest Thatcher. “The Scorpions unit does not just arrest people unless there is a very strong case.”

The 51-year-old Thatcher, dressed in a dark suit, blue shirt and blue tie, did not speak to reporters outside his house as he was led to a black police sedan to be taken to the courthouse.

Nkosi said his unit went into action following cooperation with their Equatorial Guinea counterparts. He suggested Thatcher could be granted bail, under the condition he did not leave South Africa.

Thatcher, a businessman, moved to Cape Town from the United States in 1996, and lived in the same street as Simon Mann, a former British special forces officer on trial in Zimbabwe where he is accused of being the ringleader of the alleged plot.

Armed guards kept watch outside Thatcher’s high-walled, thatched-roof house and police escorted men, believed to be his lawyers, inside before he was taken to court.

Thatcher, whose mother was premier from 1979-90, became Sir Mark when he inherited a baronetcy upon the death of his father Denis last year.

MERCENARY TRIALS

Police are investigating Thatcher on suspicion of violating South Africa’s tough anti-mercenary law in connection with what officials have called a plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest oil producer.

“We have alleged that he (Thatcher) is a financier in that particular coup attempt … we are looking for documents that are going to assist us in our investigation. We take this very seriously,” said another Scorpian spokesman, Sipho Ngwema.

Eighty four foreigners, mostly South Africans, have been put on trial simultaneously in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea in one of Africa’s most spectacular mercenary cases for decades.

A South African among the group on trial in Equatorial Guinea was recalled by judges on Wednesday and said he had discussed a business deal with Thatcher. Nick du Toit told the court he had been introduced to the British businessman by Mann.

South African media said Thatcher is a friend of Mann, seized with more than 60 others in March when their plane landed in Harare. Officials said they were on their way to join co-conspirators in Equatorial Guinea.

Du Toit told the court on Tuesday the plotters hoped to install an exiled opposition politician as head of state.

Scorpian spokesman Nkosi said he did not expect Thatcher to be extradited to Equatorial Guinea. “South Africa is opposed to the death penalty and we wouldn’t extradite someone to a country where he would face the danger of the death penalty,” he said.

Thatcher was privately educated at the elite Harrow School but with little academic success. He failed his accountancy examinations three times.

Dubbed “The Boy Mark” by British media, he was worshipped by his mother. He tried a number of jobs including car rally driver.

When her son got lost in the Sahara desert during a car rally in 1982, the “Iron Lady” broke down and wept in public. She only shed public tears again when she quit the premiership.

Source: Reuters
URL: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.j…/p>