The World - News from May 7, 1985

Irish-born soldier of fortune Michael (Mad Mike) Hoare was released from a South African prison after serving part of a 10-year sentence imposed in connection with his coup attempt in the Seychelles in 1981. The 68-year-old veteran of wars in Biafra and Zaire was freed under a general amnesty announced last December by South African President Pieter W. Botha. Hoare, a former colonel in Britain’s Coldstream Guards, was jailed in South Africa, along with 41 of his men, in 1982 after being convicted of hijacking an Air India plane to Durban to escape the Seychelles.