Zimbabwe Arrests Britons Extradition Case Lawyer

Zimbabwean police have arrested the lawyer representing a former British special forces officer.

Zimbabwean police have arrested the lawyer representing a former British special forces officer fighting extradition to Equatorial Guinea to face coup plot charges, police said on Tuesday.

Jonathan Samkange, the lawyer for Briton Simon Mann, was arrested on Monday night at his home for allegedly falsifying information on a visa application for a witness in the case, said police spokesman Andrew Phiri.

Mann was arrested last week under an immigration warrant for deportation after completing a jail term imposed in 2004. He was denied bail.

He had been found guilty of trying to purchase weapons without a licence as part of a plot against Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Samkange was likely to appear in court late on Tuesday or Wednesday, said Phiri.

"He's being investigated under the Immigration Act, in relation to his attempt to try to bring somebody into the country using false information," he said.

Samkange told a court hearing last month that Zimbabwe's immigration department had frustrated his efforts to bring in witnesses from Equatorial Guinea.

He had also intended to call officials from Amnesty International and the International Bar Association to testify that Equatorial Guinea had a record of torturing prisoners and conducting unfair trials.

Mann, who has been branded the ring leader in the coup plot, was arrested in Harare in March 2004 along with 66 other men, who served lesser sentences.