Thatcher's son avoids jail in plot

PRETORIA -- Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former British prime minister, avoided jail and agreed to pay a $500,000 fine yesterday after pleading guilty for what he called his unwitting role in a failed plot last year to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, a tiny, oil-rich West African nation long ruled by a dictator.

Thatcher's plea bargain, in which he agreed to tell South African investigators all he knows about the case, could lead to further disclosures in the far-reaching investigation.

Scores of alleged mercenaries, most from South Africa, are in jails in Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe. But investigators also are interested in whether oil companies, bankrollers, and opposition politicians in the Equatorial Guinea regime were involved.

For Thatcher, 51, who gave an emotional statement outside Cape Town High Court yesterday, the key motivation in the plea was to stay out of jail and rejoin his family. He was charged in South Africa because he tried to lease a helicopter near Johannesburg that would have been used in the coup, investigators said. After his arrest in August at home in a Cape Town suburb, he was released on bail but had to surrender his passport.

''There is no price too high for me to be reunited with my family, and I am sure all of you who are husbands and fathers would agree with that," said Thatcher, wearing a dark suit and holding worry beads. His wife, Dianne, and their two children are reportedly in the United States; Thatcher, who received his passport yesterday, is expected to join them. His mother, Margaret Thatcher, visited him in Cape Town over Christmas.

Mark Thatcher said he could not comment on the case. A statement from his legal team read: ''Sir Mark was not charged with any involvement in the attempted coup d'etat in Equatorial Guinea. The plea bargain was entered into solely as a result of his financing of the charter of a helicopter in circumstances where he should have exercised more caution."

According to the plea bargain, Thatcher said his friend Simon Mann, a former British Special Air Service officer, told him in November 2003 that Mann wanted to get involved in a transport venture in West Africa. Mann wanted Thatcher to find air transport, Thatcher said. In December 2003, Thatcher said he learned of two Alouette II helicopters for sale.

Later, Thatcher began to ''suspect that the helicopter might in fact be intended for use in such mercenary activity," according to the plea bargain statement. ''Despite his misgivings, [Thatcher] decided to invest money in the charter of the helicopter."

Thatcher paid $20,000 to reserve one helicopter, the statement said.

Sipho Ngwema, spokesman for South Africa's Directorate of Special Investigations said Thatcher agreed to cooperate fully in the continuing probe. That may be the key to the plea bargain, said Angela McIntyre, of the Institute for Security Studies, a Pretoria-based nonprofit organization.

''There's going to be a lot of cynicism about the fact he seems to have gotten out easily, compared to the others involved in the coup plot," she said. ''But the question is, what did he give in exchange for this light sentence? Could it be names of others involved? Could it be that other foreign governments or oil companies might be implicated?"

The plot unraveled in March, when 70 men were arrested in Zimbabwe and more than a dozen in Equatorial Guinea. It is unclear whose intelligence service -- many suspects say it was South Africa's -- uncovered the planning.

In Equatorial Guinea, which has said it will seek Thatcher's extradition, 14 men were found guilty of involvement in a plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the country for a quarter-century.

The alleged leader of the mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea was Nick du Toit, who was sentenced to 34 years. But the 14 men have appealed their sentences.