Suspected Hungarian mercenaries on trial in Senegal for murder

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Three Hungarian ex-soldiers accused of being mercenaries seeking to operate in several west African countries, will appear in a Dakar court Saturday charged with murdering their Senegalese driver. They are being prosecuted for murder, robbery and criminal conspiracy to commit crimes. Gal Geza, 29, Zoltan Nazy, 32, and Feher Tamas, 34, are accused of strangling a Senegalese driver in April 2006 who rented them a 4×4. According to the charge sheet, Geza is a “deserter from the French Foreign Legion” and Nazy “a deserter of the Hungarian army”. Coming together, the three allegedly decided to go “find work in the hotbeds of tension in Africa,” according to the prosecutor. The group arrived by plane in the Senegalese capital, via Casablanca in Morocco and Paris. Their final destination: Sierra Leone, a former British colony in west Africa rich in diamonds and gold, which is slowly recovering from a devastating civil war (1001-2001), in which some 120,000 were killed and tens of thousands maimed. However “knowing that they would not have enough money for food, transport and lodging,” they had planned to rent a 4×4 on their arrival in Senegal and eliminate the driver to seize the vehicle, according to the charges. On April 18, 2006, they rented the 4X4 on the pretext of going on safari in the north of the country. However, once they reached Tivaouane, 92 kilometres (57 miles) north of Dakar, they strangled the driver of the vehicle, Aly Diop Niang “before throwing him in a bush with his hands and feet tied, his mouth muzzled and plastic handcuffs around his neck.” On April 21, 2006, they were arrested on the other side of the country, only five kilometres from the Guinean border. They had no weapons but were in possession of a GPS, survival material and “documents instructing on guerrilla tactics in the jungle” according to the charges. At first they admitted to be carrying out an operation as part of a training course for an elite branch of the British army. Retracting this, they then said they were going to take a boat to Sierra Leone where they had obtained employment as security agents in the diamond mines. However according to the prosecution they had also “targeted the two Guineas (Guinea-Bissau and Guinea Conakry) to carry out guerrilla acts for remuneration … They had also chosen Senegal as a withdrawal base after having carried out operations in these countries.” A defense advocate speaking on condition of anonymity said: “They were passing through Senegal to get to Sierra Leone to look for work as security guards in the diamond mines.” “They choked the driver but he did not die in the car. He was still alive when they left him in the bush,” he said. According to the defense they risk between five years in prison and a life sentence.

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