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The mystery aircraft impounded at Harare's airport left South African air space illegally, en route for Burundi, aviation sources said yesterday.

The aircraft, a Boeing 727-100 that once belonged to the US Air Force, was scheduled to fly from Wonderboom airport at Pretoria to Polokwane International Airport and from there to Bujumbura, in Burundi.

Moses Seate, a Civil Aviation Authority spokesperson, confirmed the illegal departure and said it was being investigated.

Other sources said the aircraft failed to land at Polokwane and consequently left the country's airspace illegally.

Aircraft are not allowed to fly out of the country from Wonderboom.

Observers at the Wonderboom airport said the plane arrived around 8am and departed at 4pm.

Shortly before it left from the hangar of Dodson's International Parts, a bus-load of black men reportedly boarded.

It is believed the aircraft arrived in South Africa on Saturday. It is not known where from.

The ownership of the aircraft is also in dispute.

The aircraft, bearing the US registration number N4610, is registered to the Kansas-based Dodson Aviation, but a Dodson official said the company sold the plane about a week ago to an African company called Logo.

Local aviation enthusiasts are not aware of such a company anywhere in Africa.

Meanwhile, foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said South African High Commissioner to Zimbabwe Jerry Ndou, who was to meet Zimbabwean officials to discuss and investigate the incident yesterday, had not done so by noon.

There are allegations that among the 64 men on board are South Africans, which would put them in breach of South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act.

The Act prohibits the involvement of South Africans in military activities outside South Africa without authorisation from the National Conventional Arms Control Committee.

The Afrikaans daily Beeld reported yesterday that intelligence sources said the plane could have been on its way to West Africa, perhaps headed for a threatening coup in Equatorial Guinea, a small former-Spanish colony wedged between Cameroon and Gabon.

Its capital, Malabo, is on an island offshore Cameroon's coast.

Oil was recently discovered in its waters.

The newspaper also indicated that the elderly cargo plane may have been forced to land in Harare because of a technical problem.

Speculation in aviation circles is that South African air traffic controllers may have informed Harare that the plane had entered their airspace from South Africa without permission from them to leave.

The Boeing is presently being detained at a Zimbabwean military air base after it was the Zimbabwean government and state media alleged it was found to be carrying mercenaries and military equipment.

State television bulletins, however, showed no sign of arms in the aircraft.

Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said the plane had been detained at Harare International Airport at 7pm on Sunday after its owners made a false declaration of its cargo and crew.

He did not name the owners.

However, state television news showed a large plain white aircraft with a blue stripe along the side and bearing the registration N4610.

Military police were shown going through piles of boots and colourful training shoes, blue kitbags, hand-held radios, satellite telephones, loud hailers, sleeping bags, bolt cutters, sledge hammers, a small pepper spray and a bright orange dinghy, but no sign of firearms, ammunition or explosives.

The bulletin described the equipment as of the type "normally used by commandos on specialised missions".

It said air force, army and bomb disposal experts were still examining the cargo "to determine whether there is possibly arms of war".

Mohadi said further details would be released later as official investigations clarified the identity of the crew and passengers, "and their ultimate purpose".

The television bulletin said the passengers had been questioned, but that security authorities refused to identify them in case it "prejudices investigations". They were described as "all heavily built males", most of whom were white.

A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Harare said there had been no contact from the Zimbabwean government over the incident.

An official had been dispatched to obtain further details.

President Robert Mugabe and the state media continually accuse the American and British governments of leading an onslaught of "Western imperialists" to overthrow him.

In March 1999, three Americans were arrested at Harare airport, en route home from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after hunting rifles, shotguns, handguns ammunition and knives were found in their luggage.

The government said the three were "assassins" sent by Britain and America to kill Mugabe and former DRC president Laurent Kabila.

They turned out to be evangelical missionaries who said they had brought their weapons to the Congo for "self defence" in a country that was in the middle of a major war.

They were tried and found guilty of the relatively minor offence of "illegal possession of weapons" and ordered to spend two months in jail.

By then they had already had spent six months in prison where they said they were subjected to water torture, assault, sexual abuse and electroshock. – Sapa.

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