MALABO, Sept 4 (AFP) - 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.