Margaret Thatcher's Son Released on Coup Plot Charges (Update2)

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Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Mark Thatcher, the son of former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, briefly appeared in a Cape Town court after being arrested for allegedly aiding a failed coup in Equatorial Guinea.

Thatcher, 49, was released and told to provide a guarantee of 2 million rand ($300,000) by Sept. 8. He was ordered to surrender his passport and travel documents, not to leave the Cape Town vicinity without written permission and report daily to police. The case was postponed till Nov. 25.

A dozen investigators from the Scorpions, an FBI-style crime- fighting unit, swooped on Thatcher's Constantia, Cape Town, home shortly after dawn to search for documents linking him to the coup. South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act prevents residents of the country from planning or conducting any military acts abroad.

Thatcher ``has been co-operating with the authorities,'' Alan Bruce-Brand, Thatcher's lawyer said outside the court in Wynberg, Cape Town. ``He denies any possible wrongdoing at all.''

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