Mercenaries Surrender After Coup Attempt

A grizzled, limping soldier of fortune ended his latest power grab in Africa on Thursday by quietly leading his camouflage-clad band of white mercenaries into French custody.

The subdued surrender on the Comoros Islands off Africa’s east coast came after a lightning invasion of French troops ended a short-lived coup by Bob Denard, two dozen mercenaries and 300 allied Comorian soldiers.

Denard and the hired guns who followed him in his latest African escapade emerged unarmed Thursday from the military barracks that had served as their command center since they deposed the president of the Comoros one week ago.

Some of the mercenaries were overweight, tattooed veterans with gray hair while others were smooth-faced youngsters. Twenty-three were from France, like Denard, and one was Belgian.

Denard, 66, seemed resigned to prison in France, where he is wanted for leaving the country illegally while under investigation for the 1989 death of another Comorian president, Ahmed Abdallah Abderrahmane.