Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Photograph by: LUCAS JACKSON
Credit: REUTERS

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Obiang said Severo Moto Nsa should return to the country to serve some of his sentence first.

"Severo Moto must come and if he does even one week (in prison), I will pardon him, I will give him amnesty," said Obiang.

He was speaking in a television interview following a presidential election Sunday that was likely to extend his 30-year grip on power.

A 2004 coup attempt that would have installed Moto as president of the oil-rich west African state was foiled when dozens of mercenaries were arrested in Zimbabwe.

Several leaders, including Briton Simon Mann, were later extradited to Equatorial Guinea, convicted and jailed.

Mann and four South Africans were pardoned in early November.

"I pardoned Simon Mann and the South Africans because they served some time in prison," Obiang said in the interview carried by several television channels.

Moto said last week he would not recognise the result of Sunday's poll.