JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — The South African government has rejected a charge by British mercenary Simon Mann that it had approved a plot to topple Equatorial Guinea's president in 2004.
Testifying at his ongoing trial, Mann told a Malabo court on Wednesday that Spain, South Africa and the United States had given support for the failed coup.
"Allegations by Mann that the South African government had given tacit support for a failed military coup in Equatorial Guinea in 2004 is as preposterous as it is laughable," the department of foreign affairs said in a statement late Thursday.
"We reiterate our view that Simon Mann must bear the consequences of his own actions."
South Africa is a signatory to a number of protocols of the African Union and the United Nations prohibiting the unconstitutional transfer of power, and it has also enacted a Foreign Assistance Act which prohibits the involvement of the country in military activities outside the country's borders, it said.
"South Africa will never, tacitly or expressly support the use of mercenaries to bring about fundamental political changes in any country in our continent or elsewhere in the world," said the text.
Mann -- who prosecutors allege spearheaded the operation -- stated that South African secret services had passed him a message from its head to the effect that it was giving him a green light to mount a coup.
Mann -- who faces 30 years in jail if convicted -- was arrested in 2004 at Harare airport with 61 alleged accomplices when their plane touched down en route to Equatorial Guinea.
Zimbabwean authorities accused them of trying to pick up arms before launching their coup attempt. Mann said at the time that the group was on its way to provide security to private mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mann was extradited to Malabo last year from Zimbabwe.
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