David Leigh
Monday January 24, 2005
The Guardian
The prospect of Sir Mark Thatcher being allowed to return to the US to rejoin his wife and children in Dallas became more uncertain last night, as new evidence emerged that his role in an African coup attempt may have been more central than has been admitted, and involved questionable activities in the US.
A senior former state department official in Washington, Joseph Sala, has disclosed he was hired by the plotters to gain US support for the coup. Mr Sala tells a BBC3 TV programme tonight that he was offered $40,000 (£21,351) to promote the plotters' cause there. Records for Sir Mark's mobile phone show that he was among those placing calls to a London businessman accused of masterminding the Washington plot.
Eli Calil, a millionaire middleman in African oil deals and a friend of the Labour politician Peter Mandelson, was allegedly at the centre of a group of London businessmen and mercenaries trying to promote their own candidate to take over the tiny but oil-rich state of Equatorial Guinea.
Its ruler, President Teodoro Obiang, was believed to be dying of cancer, and valuable oil concessions were hoped to be up for grabs. Much of the country's mushrooming oil industry is controlled by US companies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1397008,00.html