French "Dog of War" found guilty of Comoros coup

PARIS, June 20 (Reuters) A French court found today Bob Denard, one of France's most notorious mercenary leaders, guilty of taking part in a 1995 coup in the Comoros and handed him a suspended five-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors had sought a jail term of five years for Denard on charges of criminal association and up to five years in prison for 26 of his former associates.

All his accomplices were found guilty but were given suspended sentences or were not penalised.

Denard, who has Alzheimer's disease, and his accomplices were charged with overthrowing Comoran President Mohammed Djohar in September 1995, when they put opposition leaders Mohammed Taki and Said-Ali Kemal in power in the Indian Ocean state.

The French army intervened in October 1995 under bilateral accords with the Comoros islands, a former French colony, and captured the mercenaries.

They claimed they had acted with the knowledge and implicit support of the French government, a claim rejected by the prosecution which branded them ''a gang of criminals who held up a country.'' Denard, whose colourful and sometimes violent career as a mercenary in the Indian Ocean islands stretched back to 1975, was one of several European ''Dogs of War'' to play a major role in a series of African wars during the 1960s and 1970s.

He was also involved in four separate coups in the Comoros.

REUTERS KD PM1823