Mark Thatcher pleads guilty in Cape Town

[leftchick]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-01/13/content_2456258.htm

JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- British businessman Mark Thatcher accused of bankrolling a failed coup plot in Equatorial Guinea pleaded guilty in a Cape Town court on Thursday.

He has agreed to a 3-million-rand (500,000 US dollars) fine plus a four-year suspended jail term, the SAPA news agency said.

The plea and sentence are contained in a plea bargain agreementwith South Africa's elite investigation team the Scorpions, which was made an order of court by a Cape Town judge on Thursday morning.

As a result of the plea-bargain agreement, Thatcher is believedto be able to leave the country to join his family in the United States.

An official statement issued by Thatcher's legal team said Thatcher 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 heshould have exercised more caution," it said.

Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was arrested at his

[McDoomfook]

1. He's a

pig. If the US lets him in to live there then my move to Scotland is even more justified. He's a criminal.

[AP]

2. Well, that's a pretty light sentence!

[Moderator]

3. duplicate

locking

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1144683