U.K. - AFP

E. Guinea asks to interview Thatcher in South Africa: official


JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Equatorial Guinea asked to interview Mark Thatcher, who has been arrested in South Africa on suspicion of financing a coup plot in the oil-rich central African state, a foreign affairs official said. AFP/File Photo "Our ambassador ... has received a request by Equatorial Guinea to come to South Africa to interview Mark Thatcher," said official Ronnie Mamoepa. "The request was received less than an hour ago," he told AFP. Mamoepa said the request to question Thatcher, which would involve Equatorial Guinea's prosecuting authority, would be relayed to South Africa's Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla for a decision. He could not say when the decision would be made. Equatorial Guinea said earlier on Friday it was in talks with South Africa to extradite Thatcher but Pretoria denied the claim. Lawyer Lucie Bourthoumieux, legal counsel to the government of Equatorial Guinea's president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, had told AFP that Malabo and Pretoria were "in close contact" over the issue of extraditing Thatcher. But Mamoepa told AFP in Johannesburg: "As it is the status quo remains. There has been no talks whatsoever about extradition." Thatcher was arrested in a dawn raid on his luxury Cape Town home on Wednesday, accused of contributing 275,000 dollars to an alleged plot to install a new regime in Equatorial Guinea.
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