SPAWN OF SATAN CHARGED

Oh that it were his Ma, but he’ll do for starters. Sir Scratcher has been charged with involvement in a coup plot in oil rich Equatorial Guinea, prosecutors have confirmed. The 51-year-old South Africa-based ‘businessman’ is accused of helping to finance the coup attempt, said Attorney General Jose Olo Obono.

The coup plotters – intended to force out the 25-year regime of President Teodoro Obiang and install an exiled opposition figure as a figurehead leader for Africa's third biggest oil producer, Equatorial Guinea claims.

Marky boy was doomed when three South Africans plea-bargained and shoped him. The three squeelers, Crause Steyl, Lourens Horn and Harry Carlse sealed his fate and he was yesterday added to the existing list of 19 other defendants on trial in Malabo - the capital of the west African nation - all accused mercenaries, on Tuesday, Obono said. Mr Steyl was found guilty of supplying the plotters with air transport and men to take part in the coup. He was ordered to pay a fine of 200,000 rand (£18,000) or go to jail for 10 years. Mr Steyl is expected to give evidence against Sir Mark as the two were partners in an air transport business accused of providing the plane that was to transport mercenaries to Equatorial Guinea.
Equatorial Guinea intends to seek Thatcher's extradition, a legal official said.
Now in a kinky twist Jack Straw has been forced to admit that the British government knew about the alleged plot to overthrow the President of Equatorial Guinea at least five weeks before a group of mercenaries was arrested in March for planning the coup. Straw's admission came in a parliamentary answer last week in the Commons to a question tabled by the Tories' shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram.
In a dramatic admission, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, confirmed that the government had been 'informed' of the alleged coup plot 'in late January 2004'. On 7 March a group of mercenaries, led by an Old Etonian and former SAS officer, Simon Mann, was arrested in Zimbabwe. They were charged with plotting a putsch.

See the Observer report here.