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Equa-Guinea legal team in Armenia to probe links to coup plot

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  • Equa-Guinea legal team in Armenia to probe links to coup plot

    Equa-Guinea legal team in Armenia to probe links to coup plot

    Agence France Presse -- English
    September 4, 2004 Saturday 12:58 PM GMT

    MALABO Sept 4 -- A legal team from Equatorial Guinea is in Armenia
    to probe links between a local air transport company and an alleged
    plot to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, an official said here
    Saturday.

    The focus of the Equato-Guinean investigators' visit to the central
    Asian country was a contract between Armenia's Tiger Air and a German
    company whose representative in Malabo, Gerhard Eugen Merz, was among
    15 foreigners arrested in Equatorial Guinea in March and accused of
    plotting a coup, the legal official said.

    Merz died days after his arrest, officially from cerebral malaria,
    but with rights groups saying he was tortured to death.

    Among those arrested were the six Armenian air crew of an Antonov
    cargo plane. All six have denied involvement in the alleged coup bid,
    and told a court in Malabo that they had come to Equatorial Guinea to
    work under contract to Merz's company, which had leased their plane
    and services.

    The Antonov and its Armenian crew arrived in Equatorial Guinea in
    January this year.

    Between then and the discovery of the alleged coup plot in March they
    made only one flight, on behalf of a company owned by South African
    businessman Nick du Toit, who faces the death penalty for allegedly
    leading the coup bid.
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