EXCLUSIVE Ex-SAS officer Simon Mann who led failed African 'Wonga Coup' involving Mark Thatcher has died 'while exercising' aged 72
Old Etonian Mann, who also served in the Scots Guards after Sandhurst, was one of a group of 70 mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe for attempting to stage a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea in 2004.
Businessman Sir Mark, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was later arrested in South Africa and, like Mann, admitted a part in the coup attempt.
It is believed that multi-millionaire and father-of-seven Mann was exercising in the gym when he died this week, aged 72.
Mann was born into a life of privilege and had a distinguished military career before his entanglement in the coup.
His father George captained the England cricket team in the 1940s and was an heir to the Watney Mann brewing empire.
After Sandhurst, he served in the Scots Guards and SAS in Cyprus, Germany, Norway and Northern Ireland, volunteering as a reservist in the first Gulf war in 1991.
In 1996, Mann formed the mercenary or 'Private Military Company' Sandline with former Scots Guards Colonel Tim Spicer, operating in Angola, Sierra Leone.
In 2004, Mann hit the headlines when he and 69 other ex-soldiers were arrested during a stop-off at Harare Airport to be loaded with £100k of weapons and equipment intended to engineer the coup in Equatorial Guinea and overthrow the government of President Teodoro Obiang.
Mann and the other conspirators claimed they were merely flying to the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide security for diamond mines, but after a trial in Harare, he was given seven years for attempting to buy arms for an alleged coup, while 66 other men were acquitted.
Thatcher, nicknamed 'Scratcher', meanwhile, was arrested at home in Cape Town and eventually pleaded guilty to 'negligently supplying financial assistance' to the plot.
The coup was financed by Lebanese fixer Eli Calil, nicknamed 'Smelly' by his ex-public school co-conspirators, who later died falling downstairs at his home in Holland Park, West London.
President Obiang promised that he would eat Mann's testicles and drag his naked body through the streets, should he ever get the chance.
In 2006, Coup! a TV movie was made about the affair, written by actor and comedy writer John Fortune, of Bremner, Bird and Fortune fame, starring Jared Harris as Mann and Robert Bathurst as Thatcher.
Then in 2007, a court in Zimbabwe ruled that Mann should be extradited to Equatorial Guinea after a shady agreement between the two governments branded the 'Oil for Mann' deal.
The then Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe secured a large amount of oil from Guinea, widely believed to be in return for sending Mann north to meet his fate.
Multi-millionaire Mann was thrown into the notorious hell-hole of Black Beach Prison, where he was clapped in leg irons and would serve less than two years of a 34-year sentence, though he suffered with malaria more than once, caged in a tiny cell in solitary confinement.
Back home, Mann's loyal wife Amanda, fighting with others for her husband's release, displayed unquenchable spirit, acquiring a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: 'A man is for Christmas. Not for life.'
In 2009 he was granted a 'complete pardon on humanitarian grounds' by President Obiang, the man he had tried to depose, and settled in the New Forest with his wife Amanda, but last year the pair were reported to have split.
Last year, the Mail's Richard Eden reported that Mann had left Amanda, mother of four of his seven children, who campaigned tirelessly for his release and was apparently being comforted by a woman more than 20 years his junior.
'Simon and Amanda have split up,' a friend said, adding that Mann has moved out of the house on the south coast where they've lived since shortly after his release in 2009.
Mann's next scheme was growing cannabis in North Macedonia, it was reported.
Eden reported: 'They are getting divorced,' the chum tells me, saying that the marriage has been 'very difficult' ever since Mann's return from Africa.
'They decided to stay together until their youngest child left home.'
More recently, Mann's polo-playing son Jack, by his first marriage, was named as Prince Harry's 'real best man' was in the news.
He had an intended business trip to Libya interrupted when he and colleagues attempted to fly in from Malta.
The authorities decided that their paperwork needed to be 'rectified' – a process which took five days.
Last year, the Daily Telegraph interviewed Mann who claimed that Thatcher's role in the coup attempt was far more than just a 'negligent financier'.
The plot was seeded in August 2003, when Calil summoned Mann to his grand mansion in Chelsea, after being approached by Severo Moto, the exiled opposition leader in Equatorial Guinea, who wanted to overthrow the tyrannical Obiang.
Mann claimed Calil told him that King Juan Carlos of Spain, of which Equatorial Guinea is a former colony, and the then-prime minister of Spain José Maria Aznar, knew about the coup and approved of it.
As a reward, Mann would have access to oil rights once Moto was in power. Mann was also attracted by the danger and adventure that the plan involved, and believed that removing a despotic dictator would justify the ethics of the job. He told Calil he would do it.
Putting together a team of mercenaries – armed with guns, rocket launchers and mortars – to carry out the coup would cost $2.5 million, he calculated, but Calil's funds were frozen due to a criminal investigation in France.
Calil introduced Mann to a businessman who would become a silent partner in the scheme, but Mann wanted his own man and approached Thatcher.
Sir Mark was an old friend; a close neighbour in Cape Town, where both men had homes; and, the Telegraph reported, something of an SAS groupie. During a walk on Table Mountain, Mann briefed Sir Mark on the plot and asked if he would invest.
'Mark was incredibly enthusiastic', Mann told the Telegraph. 'But he was not just keen to share the spoils of our adventure in Equatorial Guinea – he wanted to play an active role in [planning] the operation.'
Mann needed a helicopter for the fast movement of supplies and troops and Sir Mark, a trained helicopter pilot, had the connections and the cash to source the required aircraft.
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8 hours ago
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Malnutrition and dehydration were rife among inmates, who had to rely on bribes to staff, paid by family members or charities, for medication and food. Perham answers my questions about his detainment in a thoughtful, measured way, often taking five-second-long pauses before speaking. His replies are interspersed by the sounds of his 17-month-old daughter delightedly ripping up newspaper on the carpeted floor of the meeting room where we talk . Our two-hour-long interview in The Telegraph's office in London takes place only a week after Perham's return to Britain. The physical and mental toll of his ordeal – weight loss, tropical ulcers, a mouth infection, exhaustion and stress – are clearly visible. 'We very much had to take everything one step at a time and just concentrate on what was in front of us. My initial feeling was just an emptiness and shock that we entered as prisoners and our things were confiscated,' he says. When the van passed through the prison's large iron gates, Inch and Perham were offloaded with the other detainees to be processed. Walking towards the prison compound, the rancid smell of sewage and festering, overflowing rubbish bins assailed their nostrils. Inmates openly defecated and urinated into the drains in front of their eyes. As many of the guards were illiterate, Perham and Inch were checked in at the central office by another prisoner, who spoke minimal English. After handing over their belongings, they were left with just the shirts on their backs. Which cell Perham and Inch were to be held in was determined by how much money they could offer the guards. By this point, neither had any cash on them. 'That was rather tricky,' Perham says simply, with a slight smile. Known by inmates as 'Le Couloir', the prison's layout is a long corridor with rooms on each side. Inmates unable to pay were placed in cells with violent, predatory offenders. The pair were told that as white Westerners who were likely to be wealthier than their fellow inmates, they would be staying in a 'comfortable living area with access to a toilet and a comfortable bed'. This, like so many other assurances made to them by the officers, was not the case. Their first cell, where they spent two weeks, was crammed with 30 other prisoners sleeping on mattresses, two abreast, that covered the entire floor. 'How [so] many people fitted in that room, I do not know,' Inch says. The pair's only pitiful defence against the rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes that infested the cell was a small handheld fan they managed to obtain. At the cell door was a huge mound of flip-flops, which all the prisoners took from at random. 'I even found one of the guards with my shoes on,' Perham remembers. Each cell was ruled over by a 'chief', who determined where others were allowed to sit and what privileges they could earn. The distinction between guards and prisoners was blurred. Officers socialised in the same areas and would bully inmates for money. Anything the pair needed – food, medicine, toiletries, a phone or small luxuries, even exercise – had to be paid for with bribes to the prisoners and guards inside. Fortunately, on their first night, they were given a warm reception by 'Kati', a chief in an Arsenal football shirt, who offered them his bed. Inch and Perham spent the first night sleeping head to toe on a mattress in the corner. Perham says: 'You pull together and you work together. You work as one body because the conditions are such that you have no personal space.' Only thoughts of his wife and young daughter, and the precious weekly phone calls he could make to them back in the UK, got him through the terrible days and nights. The water from the showers, which would often run out, was so contaminated that the men would have to douse themselves in disinfectant afterwards. Their rations were a few bowls of rice each day with a thin sauce poured on top. They were only able to survive by bribing their local lawyer to bring in pizzas and burgers with money transferred from their families. Outside the cell, their skin colour made them a target for financial extortion and intimidation. On the first morning of their captivity, as they queued to shower, Inch was kicked in the stomach and attacked by another inmate. 'You would witness violence in some ways most days,' Perham says. Shortly into their detention, they were led into the central, and most violent, part of the prison, reserved for those with no money. 'This was one of the most traumatic parts of the whole story for me, going to that place and finding a way to get out of there,' Perham tells me. He was threatened with what his wife now describes as 'serious, serious abuse', and extorted for money. Through intermediaries inside the prison, the pair were able to pay the £850 needed to secure their place back in the slightly safer cell. On the outside, Perham's wife, Marianne Heikkala, a 31-year-old finance director at a health company, and Inch's partner, Cheryl Potter, a 45-year-old paramedic, mounted a campaign to secure their release through petitions to Guinea authorities and letters to the Foreign Office and John Marshall, the British ambassador to Guinea at the time. A lawyer, supplied by Aerostar to argue their case, spent months trying to convince the local authorities of the pair's innocence. Two weeks later they were transferred to the second cell, where they would spend two and half months living cheek-by-jowl with 80 other inmates, sharing one bathroom. As newcomers, Inch and Perham were made to sit in the centre of the room, this one the size of a railway carriage, beneath a plume of tobacco smoke, unable to stretch their legs. At night, they wore facemasks to try to avoid contracting tuberculosis. The deplorable conditions took their toll, with Inch suffering from malnutrition, muscle wastage and gastrointestinal upsets. The noise inside was a cacophony of shouting from the inmates, many of whom downed energy drinks to keep themselves awake at night, and dozens of chickens and ducks that freely roamed the prison before being slaughtered and served to the inmates. 'You could not hear yourself think. I would have to wear earplugs if I wanted to read,' Perham says. Perham, an ultramarathon runner and long-distance cyclist, meditated each morning and would try to maintain a strict exercise routine of press-ups and sit-ups to get himself through the day. Occasionally they received small luxuries from loved ones, including a parcel packed with books, letters and mementoes. Perham's face lights up when asked about the books his wife was able to get through to him: Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, The Lord of the Rings, The Three Musketeers… 'He said, 'Classics, please.' That was the task,' Heikkala tells me. 'It needed to be a classic and from a Nobel laureate because [that would ensure] a good shelf life.' He didn't want anything that would touch too closely on his own situation. Perham chuckles when shown the picture of him in the cell holding Stephen Fry's Odyssey, a broad smile on his face. 'It really helped, it took me out of where I was and allowed me to see what I was experiencing in a different light, which was extremely powerful.' All the while, the pair would frequently be hauled before the court for updates on their case. They quickly learnt not to put too much hope in the Guinean justice system. On February 25, day 55 of their imprisonment, they were told that the prosecutor had agreed in writing to conditional release without bail. Ten days later, the judge also granted them conditional release. Three days after that, the British ambassador arrived at the prison with the pair's local lawyer to collect them. To their families, February 28 had been communicated as the date that Inch and Perham would finally be coming home. 'They showed us our papers, we went through the whole process of signing out of the prison, giving things away and saying goodbyes,' Perham says. But as they walked through the door, they were pulled to one side by the head of the prison, who had phoned the chief prosecutor and, without any explanation, informed them that they were not being released after all. 'That was crushing,' Perham recalls. 'We had no explanation. We had already mentally prepared ourselves to be outside, and the ambassador was even waiting there to collect us, so being marched back inside was a real low point.' It was then, he says, that the pair 'had to really find what we're made of and pull on the resilience we had'. Freedom at last It was not until April 10 that, after a lengthy appeal process, the court confirmed another conditional release. The next morning, after exactly 100 days of imprisonment, Richard Perham and Paul Inch were finally freed. A picture tells a thousand words. This could not be more true for Inch and Perham's family, whose next communication from the pair was a photo of them in the back seat of a taxi heading towards the British embassy in Guinea. Grinning from ear to ear, and each sporting an impressive beard and moustache, they give a thumbs up. 'It was the first air conditioning we had had for three months,' Perham says, describing the moment they walked into the British embassy. 'It was surreal, and I struggle to remember details. It's such a blur. It was a mix of elation and realisation. We were never truly out of the lion's mouth, but the moment we were in that car [we felt] relatively safe.' The ordeal, however, was not completely over. The men were placed under house arrest in a hotel near the prison for another 40 days, before finally being given their passports and allowed to fly home to Heathrow on May 23. Back on British soil, the pair parted, Inch to recover in hospital in Nottingham, then later at home. 'It was difficult adjusting,' says Perham of coming back to the UK. 'It is the end of a chapter of my life. Right now I am just focusing on healing and being at home with my family.' Aerostar has denied responsibility for Perham and Inch's imprisonment, stressing that it had no responsibility for their travel arrangements and that it was a subcontracted effort under the direction of Fronteering Travel Services Inc, a subsidiary of Expedition Forces. A spokesman also denied that the company had failed to secure the necessary approval for occupying Guinean airspace. Van de Velde, the head of Expedition Forces, says in an email: 'We were contracted by Aerostar and sent there on their behalf just to recover the balloon, and that's where our involvement ends.' He says that he subcontracted some of the work to Inch and Perham as independent contractors, adding, 'I was not able to get the visa in time and make it in time for the recovery. That is the only reason I was not sitting next to them in prison.' During our conversation in London a week after his release, Richard Perham's anger towards Aerostar and its alleged failings in safety briefings is palpable. 'There were three things that went wrong here: there was inadequate risk briefing, no emergency protocol, and there was no monitoring system. These are three things that a company needs to do if they are sending people to an environment. This cannot happen to people. There must be measures in place that protect people from doing work like this, because this shouldn't have happened.'
BBC News
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- BBC News
Being tased made me UFC world champion
This article contains descriptions of violent activity which could be imitatedDricus du Plessis is nonchalant but firm when asked if he has been punished with a Taser-like implement during his training camp before facing Khamzat Chimaev."Absolutely, multiple times," the South African tells BBC Sport. "I get tased every fight camp."That's how it is. If you make mistakes constantly - if you repeatedly make the same mistake - you're getting tased, and that's it."It was revealed last year that Du Plessis' coach Morne Visser uses the Taser-like tool on the fighters he trains as punishment for mistakes they make in the showed Du Plessis lying face down on his stomach, with Visser tasing the soles of his is an unorthodox and controversial training method - and potentially very dangerous - but Du Plessis credits it with helping him become a UFC Saturday, the 31-year-old will make the third defence of his middleweight title against Russia's Chimaev at UFC 319 in Chicago, Illinois."I always say this - I'm South African and we are built different. We do whatever it takes to become a champion and this is my coach's method," says Du Plessis."Do I like it? No. But that's his method and if I don't like it I can leave that gym any time."Did it make me a world champion? Yes, it did. You can't expect different results doing the same thing as everybody else, it's not going to work."Du Plessis gives a wry smile before taking a sip of his drink after revealing what it feels like to be tased."It feels absolutely terrible," he says. "It's like touching an electric fence - you just know it's going to be terrible. But it does make that mental note stick." It is legal to own and carry a Taser in South Africa for self-defence some ways, Du Plessis' training methods mirror his fighting style, with the South African questioned throughout his UFC career for an unconventional is known for blitzing forward and looping punches in a manner which appears reckless, but one which works to devastating Plessis is on a nine-fight winning streak at middleweight - the current longest in the division - and returning to the octagon six months after outpointing Sean his past four fights, he has two wins over Strickland and has stopped Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker - all of whom are former UFC Plessis says his record speaks for itself."Since the day I started doing this I didn't care about money, I didn't care about fame. I just wanted to be the greatest that has ever done it," he explains."The people that do doubt, what do they know about fighting? Where's their world title?" In 31-year-old Chimaev, Du Plessis is facing one of the UFC's most exciting talents and long predicted to become a is unbeaten, winning the first 14 fights of his career, but his momentum in the UFC has been stifled over the past two fought just once in 2023 and once again in 2024 after illness and injuries led to a number of cancelled also suffered visa issues, due to his ties to controversial Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, which prevented him from fighting in the United returns to America for the first time since 2022 to face Du Plessis with the Russian crediting president Donald Trump for securing his Du Plessis' confidence is unwavering as he predicts a 24th win in 26 bouts."If I go 100%, my opponent has to go 100% or I will finish you," he says."Which means we are going to a place of who has the biggest heart and who is not willing to give up, and that fight I win, 10 times out of 10."
