[These poor men! They have spent over a year in a Zimbabwean jail where no credible evidence was presented showing that they really are mercenaries. Now that most are released to return to S.Africa where they face a new trial and huge fines. Yet, all the evidence was that they really were just security guards on their way to the DRC.

I believe the real game here is the intimidation of Whites who might be interested in mercenary/security work elsewhere in the world. Jan]

By Gershwin Wanneburg and Alistair Thomson

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa will charge 64 men under its strict anti-mercenary laws, including 61 freed from a Zimbabwean jail at the weekend, the National Prosecuting Authority said on Monday.

The 61 men were deported from Zimbabwe on Sunday after serving out 12-month sentences on immigration and weapons charges. Zimbabwean prosecutors said at their trial they were involved with a foiled coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea though they were not convicted directly of being involved.

“The National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa (NPA) has decided to charge the 64 men who have returned from Zimbabwe recently with the contravention of the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act,” the NPA said in a statement.

“The 64 include the 61 men who returned to the country yesterday, the two who returned a few months ago, and the one still in the custody of Zimbabwean authorities expected in the country soon,” it said.

The Regulation of Military Assistance Act aims to curb mercenary activity that gave former apartheid soldiers a name as guns for hire in wars from West Africa to Papua New Guinea.

The NPA said it was seeking a date to bring the suspects to court to be charged within the next 20 days so as to allow them to “spend some time with their families”.

The NPA did not identify the other two it would charge, but NPA spokesman Makhosini Nkosi said on Monday morning prosecutors hoped to try the masterminds behind the plot.

“We think that these men were footsoldiers. We think that there are people who were much higher up in the hierarchy that were planning this attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea and those are the people that we would want to bring to justice in South Africa,” Nkosi told South Africa’s national SAfm radio.

Earlier the men’s lawyer Alwyn Griebenow said he expected his clients to be charged and to receive suspended sentences.

“If they are convicted in our courts of law, I am of the opinion that a term of imprisonment will be imposed, which will be suspended for a lengthy period,” Griebenow told SAfm.

Equatorial Guinea sentenced 11 foreign nationals in November to between 14 and 34 years on charges of trying to overthrow the country’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Zimbabwe prosecutors linked those charges to the case of the 62 released on Sunday, all but one of whom was immediately deported. Two plane pilots and the group’s leader Simon Mann are still serving out longer prison terms in Zimbabwe.

RELICS OF APARTHEID

All 62 were travelling on South African passports when they were detained but many were originally from Namibia and Angola — including former members of South Africa’s apartheid-era 32 Battalion, which recruited locals for bush fighting in Angola.

Griebenow said they had little alternative to security work, such as the lucrative contracts with private companies that have drawn thousands of military trained South Africans to Iraq.

“At this stage there is no offence committed if the guys go to Iraq, if they go do security work there,” Griebenow said.

After their arrest the men denied their involvement in any conspiracy, saying they had been en route to the Democratic Republic of Congo to do security work on mines.

Mark Thatcher, son of Britain’s former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, pleaded guilty in South Africa earlier this year on charges relating to the same plot in oil-exporting Equatorial Guinea. He avoided jail in a deal with prosecutors.

Reuters

Source: Swiss Info
URL: http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?s…/p>