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British mercenary goes on trial over EGuinea coup plot
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MALABO (AFP) - The trial of British mercenary Simon Mann on charges of plotting a 2004 coup in Equatorial Guinea opened Tuesday under heavy security with the chief prosecutor calling for a 30-year sentence.
The prosecutor told the court that Mann was the mastermind of a group of people who "wanted to topple the legal government".
The charge was potentially a capital one, but Attorney General Jose Olo Obono said waiving the death penalty had been a pre-condition of Mann's extradition from Zimbabwe earlier this year.
Dressed in a grey prison outfit with blue stripes on the back, Mann looked nervous and appeared to have lost some weight as he arrived at the trial venue -- a conference center in the capital Malabo.
There was a strong police presence and journalists were not allowed to take cameras or notebooks into court. Rubber sandals were handed out to people whose shoes were deemed suspicious.
Other well-connected Britons such as Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and London-based millionaire businessman Ely Calil, have been linked to the failed coup bid.
Mann -- the heir to a brewing fortune who was educated at Eton and served in Britain's elite Special Air Services (SAS) after training at the prestigious British military academy Sandhurst -- was secretly extradited to Equatorial Guinea this year from Zimbabwe.
The 55-year-old had been arrested in 2004 at Harare's international airport with 61 alleged accomplices when their plane touched down en route to Equatorial Guinea.
The authorities there accused them of trying to pick up arms before teaming up with a team led by a South African, Nick du Toit, to launch a coup against Equatorial Guinea's President Teodor Obiang Nguema.
Du Toit has since been jailed for 34 years in Equatorial Guinea and Mann spent four years in prison in Zimbabwe before being extradited to stand trial in Equitorial Guinea.
In the 1990s, Mann had set up a security consultancy called Executive Outcomes to protect businesses in conflict zones and allegedly earned millions from Angola, one of Africa's top oil producers, to guard oil installations against rebel attacks.
He also set up another private security firm, Sandline International, which was soon being linked to a 10-year civil war in the west African country of Sierra Leone, one of the most brutal conflicts in modern history.
In an interview with Britain's Channel 4 News from his prison cell in Malabo, Mann acknowledged having been involved in the coup plot but said that he had not been the mastermind.
He accused Spain and South Africa, and named Calil as having been involved.
Equatorial Guinea has also issued an international arrest warrant for Mark Thatcher, accusing him of having been one of those behind the plot.
President Obiang, who is accused by critics of stifling democracy and trampling on human rights and of frittering away the country's new-found oil riches with his family members and aides, has said he will not seek vengeance.
Obiang told Channel 4 the trial was not "an act of revenge."
The country's attorney general, Jose Olo Obono told AFP that "the court will prove that there was an attempted coup masterminded by Simon Mann and other businessmen, including Ely Calil."
Equatorial Guinea minister Fortunato Ofa Mbo, the Secretary General to the Government Presidency, is also facing trial for allegedly keeping secret the information he had on a businessman's bid to destabilise the country.
Ofa Mbo, who at the time was the fisheries minister, had allegedly helped Calil.
President Obiang has been in power in Equatorial Guinea since he overthrew his own uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, in 1979. Under his iron rule the country became one of sub-Saharan Africa's biggest oil producers but few have benefitted from the petrol boom. Oil revenues are a state secret.
Human rights groups say Obiang is one of the worst abusers of human rights in Africa.
In last month's parliamentary election, the president's ruling party and his allies obtained 99 of 100 seats in elections, according to the official results.
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Equatorial Guinea - The Mercenary Confesses
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Broadcast: 08/04/2008 -
Reporter: Jonathan Miller
Simon Mann was the heir to a family fortune, educated at Eton school in England, became an officer in the elite British special forces unit, the SAS, then exploited his military experience as a “security consultant”.
Fast forward to 2004. Simon Mann had spent months in south Africa planning the ambitious coup. A fortune in oil was the lure. South African mercenaries were in place and under cover in Equatorial Guinea. Simon Man flew into Harare the capital of Zimbabwe to collect the weaponry his men would need.
And that’s where the whole operation, codenamed “The EG Project” came un-stuck.
It transpired that South African intelligence had tumbled the plot and forewarned their Zimbabwean counterparts. Mann and sixty of his fellow “soldiers of fortune” were arrested.
Mann’s nightmare deepened when he was extradited to Equatorial Guinea where the other group of mercenaries have been sentenced to thirty years imprisonment,
Faced with that prospect Mann seems to have taken the view that now is the time to start naming names.
In an interview with Britain’s Channel Four News Simon Mann insists, “So I was, if you like, the manager. Not the architect, And not the main man.”
Mann fingers one of Britain’s wealthiest but most secretive British businessmen Ely Calil as backing the coup.
Mr Calil, of course, denies the claim saying, “ I have a great deal of sympathy with Simon Mann’s predicament. I am sure he is in considerable distress. He has made many contradictory statements. “
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Drama, farce at Simon Mann coup trial
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Martin Fletcher - June 18, 2008
MALABO: It was the biggest event the Equatorial Guinea capital had seen since 1979, when the previous dictator, Macias Nguema, was overthrown, tried in a cage suspended from the ceiling of a cinema, sentenced to death 101 times, then executed by firing squad.
Simon Mann, the Old Etonian mercenary accused of plotting to overthrow Macias's iron-fisted successor, President Obiang Nguema, was spared the cage when his trial opened overnight but the proceedings did not lack for drama - or for farce.
The prosecution said it would not seek the death penalty for Mr Mann, a former SAS officer, but it demanded a 32-year prison sentence.
It named Ely Calil, a Lebanese-Nigerian tycoon resident in London, as the mastermind of the plot. It accused Mark Thatcher - son of Margaret Thatcher - of being one of its chief "administrators", who financed the aircraft and helicopter required.
It was Mr Mann's first appearance outside the infamous Black Beach prison in Malabo since February, when he was spirited from Zimbabwe, where he had just been released after serving a three-year sentence to this tiny but oil-rich West African state.
He was clean-shaven but looked pale and gaunt and walked stiffly even given the constraints of his shackled legs.
In snatched exchanges with journalists before and after the day's proceedings he said had been treated well and hoped for clemency. But he also said he had not understood a word of the proceedings, which were conducted entirely in Spanish. Asked if he thought he would receive a fair trial he replied: "No comment."
Mr Mann and seven lesser defendants arrived at the improvised court in a high-walled conference centre in two armoured personnel carriers protected by a truck full of soldiers.
Fearing that Mr Mann's unindicted co-conspirators might attempt to free or kill him, the Equatoguinean authorities had more machinegun-toting soldiers ring the building, snipers on rooftops and a tank outside the gates.
Media were stripped of shoes, watches, jewellery, rings, pens, notebooks - anything that might have been used to assassinate the chief defendant.
Mr Mann, 55, sat in the front row on a red velvet chair, staring at a three-judge panel backed by a portrait of Mr Obiang. He was the only white face among the defendants and the only one shackled. No friends or family were present. Nor were any international human rights organisations.
He cut a lonely figure, and must have felt a million miles from his wife, seven children and estate in southern England.
The chief judge and the Attorney-General, Jose Olo Obano, read long, almost identical statements outlining the plot to unseat their President and seize control of their country's oil riches.
Mr Obano compared the plot to 9/11 and the terrorist attacks on Madrid and London. His Government believes that the US, British and Spanish Governments all tacitly approved the coup attempt.
The two named Mr Calil as the mastermind but they said that Mr Mann was the person entrusted to assassinate Mr Obiang and replace him with Severo Moto Nsa, an exiled opposition leader now in Madrid. They said he was given a $US15 million contract.
Mr Obono promised to produce Mr Mann's contracts with Mr Moto, Mr Calil and Sir Mark, his force of 70 mercenaries, and the Zimbabwean agency that supplied weapons, as well as details of money transfers and calls.
For the defence, Jose Pablo Nvo used his opening statement to argue that Mr Mann was a "mere instrument" who was exploited by Mr Calil. He said the plot would have proceeded with or without him and urged that he be given the minimum sentence.
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Mercenary Simon Mann's path from Eton to an African jail
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Catherine Philp - June 18, 2008
IF Simon Mann did not exist, you would have to make him up.
A classic English adventurer with a textbook establishment start: Eton, Sandhurst, the Scots Guards. The son of a wealthy and sporting father who made his fortune in brewing.
I can think of half a dozen friends with backgrounds like his.
But this morning, as they commute to their investment banks or sit down in their libraries to write, Mann will stand up in manacles, his hair thick with lice and his body lean from hunger, to argue before a court for his life.
His story is an old-fashioned tale of greed and adventure peopled by improbable characters.
It started conventionally enough at Eton, where Mann acquired the casual confidence of entitlement. From there he joined the Scots Guards and underwent officer training at Sandhurst.
It was once a common career path for many future businessmen or diplomats, but Mann had no intention of sitting behind a desk. He signed up for the SAS and passed the gruelling selection process on his first try.
He served as a captain in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Germany, Norway, Canada and Belize before leaving military life. He set up a company selling hacker-proofed software but was quickly drawn to security, providing wealthy Arabs with guards for their Scottish shooting estates.
Mann was tempted briefly back into uniform during the Gulf War as an aide to Peter de la Billiere, the head of British forces.
On his return from the war he met his third and current wife, Amanda. Mann already had three children and had had a vasectomy but meeting Amanda persuaded him to have it reversed. She was four months pregnant with their first child when they were married at Chelsea Register Office in 1995.
In the meantime, Mann had moved full-time into the world of mercenaries, setting up Executive Outcomes to make millions protecting Western oil interests during Angola's civil war.
When that company's reputation grew too murky he set up another, Sandline, with a fellow former Scots Guard, Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer.
The company famously defended its arms supplies to Sierra Leone, in contravention of a UN embargo, claiming it had the British Government's approval.
Mann bought a house in the exclusive Cape Town suburb of Constantia, where his neighbours included Mark Thatcher and Earl Spencer. Friends thought he had retired - until his arrest in Harare. Film director Paul Greengrass, who once worked with Mann, said of him: "He is a humane man but an adventurer."
Humane is not a word often used of Equatorial Guinea's President, Teodoro Obiang, who presides over one of the worst human rights records in Africa.
In a profile of the West African nation, recently rich from its oil, British newspaper The Independent reported that Mr Obiang was known to eat the testicles of those who had crossed him.
The Times
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