FEEDS |

SA government knew about coup: mercenary

Nov 22, 2009 2:37 PM | By Sapa

A gun was placed to his head and he was threatened with death by an adviser to Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, mercenary Nick du Toit has told Rapport.


Current Font Size:
British coup-plotter Simon Mann, left, and four South African mercenaries attend a liberation ceremony at Black Beach Prison in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea after the five received presidential pardons.
British coup-plotter Simon Mann, left, and four South African mercenaries attend a liberation ceremony at Black Beach Prison in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea after the five received presidential pardons.
Photograph by: TEO NCHASO
Credit: AP

Related Articles

Related Blogs

Columnists

In a three-hour-interview with the newspaper, Du Toit said he was dragged from his cell in the middle of the night by the adviser, who was drunk at the time.

Du Toit spent more than five years in Equatorial Guinea's notorious Black Beach prison after a failed attempt to overthrow Nguema, for which he and the rest of the coup plotters received sentences of 34 years each.

He was unexpectedly released on November 5 with fellow coup plotters Briton Simon Mann and South Africans, George Alerson, Sergio Cardoso and Jose Sundays after receiving a presidential pardon.

He told Rapport they were tortured in prison with electric shock devices and burning cigarettes. One coup plotter died of a heart attack while being tortured, he said.

Under the headline "My prison hell" the newspaper reported that the scars were still visible where handcuffs had cut Du Toit's wrists to the bone, then rusted in place. He had lost 37kg in prison.

In the interview, Du Toit reiterated his contention that the South African government knew about the planned coup six months beforehand, but did nothing to stop it, in effect tacitly approving it.

"We were under the impression that if the thing actually went ahead, the government would support us... we were covered," he told the newspaper, adding that this impression was conveyed to them by Mann, the former recce who was the architect of the plan

 Loading...

 or  to comment

Comments

Nov 22 2009 02:53:57 PM
hoodoo
user name
No suprise. Mbeki and Zuma knew..oil twinkle in their eyes...
Nov 22 2009 04:31:00 PM
Gumdrop
user name
ANC cockroaches.
Nov 22 2009 04:39:37 PM
Dusty
user name
I read on News24 about the rats almost eating them alive.

Now maybe they (the mercenaries) will learn to stick their noses where they belong and not in another country's business.

They deserve the treatment they got.
Nov 22 2009 06:19:13 PM
Theo
user name
So what ? That was no licence for them to embark on a safari full of hungry lions. Did they expect to be stopped like kids at a Zoo, trying to poke a lion's nose with their fingers ?Where did these guys go to school ?
Nov 22 2009 07:47:46 PM
Rockspider
user name
Hmmmmmm Sechaba, pikanninie, hamba tula. Du toits have abad record playing army army.....
Nov 22 2009 09:47:55 PM
AntonS
user name
The whole affair was an cynical Mbeki connivance to make the little man feel a bit bigger by catching some SA mercs that he knew full well about, to appear to "save" a fellow African leader (despot) from a coup. Made him feel big and admired amongst other African leaders.

Why was the main protagonist, Scratcher Thatcher let off the hook - cowards !
Nov 23 2009 05:49:29 AM
Dusty
user name
Sechaba, open those blinkered eyes my BOY. Look at the photo and see how many of those guys are white Afrikaner South Africans. Seems there are more non-whites in there.


That wouldn't fit your agenda though would it.
Nov 23 2009 08:58:29 AM
younglady
user name
okay they "knew" about it... fine!!

but did they send you there?
Nov 23 2009 11:32:55 AM
As_IT_is
user name
this is laughable, who knew? the sphere of goverment is large, besides, do they think any goverment will acknowledge supporting terrorism or mercenary actions...america widely does it, but its always denial, so if they believed them then Mugabe is the greatest leader alive!
Nov 23 2009 11:47:15 AM
dinoko
user name
"In the interview, Du Toit reiterated his contention that the South African government knew about the planned coup six months beforehand, but did nothing to stop it, in effect tacitly approving it."
_____________________________________

Well they (government) DID stop the coup didn't they? And that in itself has 2 disprove the notion that the government approved of it.

Besides, how else was government supposed 2 stop the coup from happening.

I mean if the police found out about a plot by robbers 2 rob a bank, in order 4 the police 2 ensure a successful conviction, (of the 2 be robbers), they have 2 (for lack of better description), catch them in the act, not so???


Today's Topics