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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMark Thatcher - a nasty piece of work - just like his mother
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/11/mark-thatcher<snip>
One of this week's more surreal sights has been the reappearance in England of Mark Thatcher, who will be chief mourner at the forthcoming official funeral of his mother.
The now 59-year-old who was convicted in South Africa in 2005 over his involvement in a failed coup in Equatorial Guinea has achieved a certain fresh respectability in the eyes of the world, by now being entitled to call himself "Sir" Mark.
He had been exposed by the Observer for trading on his mother's name in the Middle East, over a contract to build a £300m university in Oman. A company controlled by construction magnate Victor Matthews employed Mark Thatcher as a secret consultant, who would get a large commission if the firm landed the contract. He travelled to the British client state of Oman to join his mother, who was on an official mission there. She strenuously lobbied the sultan to award a building contract to her son's firm, Cementation Ltd.
Behind the scenes, Mark was also allegedly set to benefit from the biggest arms deal in British history, also personally promoted by Mrs Thatcher, in which large secret payments were made by arms firm BAE to cement the so-called al-Yamamah warplane sale to Saudi Arabia. The arms sales to the Saudi ruling family gave BAE a staggering £43bn in revenue over the following two decades.
He moved first to Dallas, where he married the daughter of a car dealer, and then, following disputes about his tax affairs, in 1996 to south Africa, to the wealthy white enclave of Constantia, on the Cape.
To add to his woes, he was barred from entry to the US, whence his ex-wife and children had returned, on the grounds of his criminal conviction. His search for an offshore home began to look increasingly forlorn, as Switzerland and Monaco did not give him residence permits. He ended up in Gibraltar, the run-down British colony which offers tax breaks to wealthy people, provided they rent large properties there and pay £20,000 a year.
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What an entitled scumbag.
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Mark Thatcher - a nasty piece of work - just like his mother (Original Post)
malaise
Apr 2013
OP
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)1. He is so bad even teh U.S. barred him????
Wow....that has to be bad on a huge scale......look at all the war criminals we let run loose here.
malaise
(267,821 posts)2. That's for the coup
and he had some tax issues in the US - I love how mommy dearest arranged the title and the deals. These people should all be in prison.
Wednesdays
(17,248 posts)3. K & R