Hated mercenary Denard deserves worse, Comoros says

MUTSAMUDU, Comoros, July 7 (Reuters) Comorians today said a year in prison was not enough for veteran French mercenary Bob Denard, who gained notoriety for his role in four of the Indian Ocean archipelago's 19 coups or attempted coups.

A Paris appeal court jailed Denard for four years yesterday but ordered three of them suspended and fined him 100,000 euros (136,000 dollar), overturning a five-year suspended jail term handed down by a lower court last year.

''It's always been Bob Denard. We don't know of anybody else,'' port worker Daniel Rastami told Reuters in Mutsamudu, the capital of Anjouan island. ''He made blood flow, and left Comorians with memories of hatred.'' Denard is widely hated in the three-island nation, which has been politically volatile ever since independence from France in 1975 and is now suffering a political crisis with the leader of Anjouan island defying the national government.

''He's a bloodthirsty tyrant,'' Mohamed Salim, 49, another port worker, said. ''By comparison with what he's done in our country (a year) is the very minimum.'' Denard 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 and others were charged with overthrowing Comoros President Mohammed Djohar in September 1995, when they put opposition leaders Mohammed Taki and Said-Ali Kemal in power in the Indian Ocean state.

''I cannot understand how a group of mercenaries, who foment a coup d'etat in a sovereign country, are condemned to only one year in prison,'' said Idriss Mohamed, who was imprisoned and tortured by the mercenaries in 1985.

''French justice has shown that it bends with political decisions and is not as independent as it pretends,'' he said.

France intervened in October 1995, capturing the mercenaries, who said they had acted with the knowledge and implicit support of the French government.

''It's theatre from the French justice system,'' Mohamed Houssein, a history teacher, said. ''He was always working for France.'' Denard's soldiers killed Comorian President Ali Soilih in 1978 and is suspected of involvement in the death of President Ahmed Abdallah, 11 years later in 1989.

Denard had come out of apparent retirement to help lead the 1995 coup. He is now aged 77 and suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

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