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Daily Mail
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
The one subject I didn't dare raise with Simon Mann as we sat in his hellish African prison? That the despot he'd tried to overthrow was intent on eating his testicles! IAN GALLAGHER recalls his bizarre encounter with the roguish Old Etonian
When I first met Simon Mann he was inching across a dusty prison yard in leg irons and handcuffs. Not that his tortuous shuffle was due entirely to his shackles. He moved deliberately slowly, he later told me, the better to savour every precious gulp of fresh air, lest any one of them might be his last. It was March 2008 and I had flown from London to interview Britain's most famous soldier of fortune – who died suddenly aged 72 on Friday – in Africa's most infamous jail, Black Beach. In those days, the prison, on the tropical volcanic island of Bioko off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, was even more of a hellhole than Devil's Island, home to the fictional Papillon. Torture was rife, malaria and yellow fever endemic, cell floors were slippery with rats and sewage, and guards thought nothing of keeping inmates starved for days. Nobody much fancied Mann's chances of getting out alive. Caught red-handed leading a band of mercenaries on a mission to overthrow the country's murderous dictator, President Teodoro Obiang, Mann had already spent four years in a maximum-security jail in Zimbabwe where he was put through a mock execution and threatened with being fed alive to crocodiles. Ghastly enough, you might think. But things then took a turn for the worse. After losing an extradition battle, Mann was spirited across Africa to oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, sandwiched between Cameroon and Gabon – and delivered straight into the hands of Obiang, a despot of reputedly cannibalistic tendencies. Word had spread that he was intent on eating the Old Etonian's testicles and dragging his naked body through the streets. I once put this claim to Obiang, incidentally, during an interview in his presidential palace as he sat, flanked by bodyguards, on a throne beneath an almost life-size portrait of himself. He shook his head. 'I'm not a cannibal, I'm a humanitarian,' he protested. I decided not to press the point. On that morning in Black Beach jail, though, it seemed uncharitable to burden Mann with thoughts of cannibalism. He had enough on his plate, so to speak. After enjoying the sunshine in the prison yard, he appeared in the doorway of an air-conditioned courtroom, part of the jail complex, where I waited with Mail on Sunday photographer Keith Waldegrave. We had expected a pitiful wreck, yet here he was, a little fragile, but all smiles and playing the gracious host, just as if he was welcoming us to Sunday lunch at Inchmery, his 20-acre estate on the banks of the River Beaulieu in Hampshire. 'Welcome, welcome – so good of you to come,' beamed the former SAS troop commander turned mercenary. Charming and witty, he would remain upbeat throughout our interview. Even so, it was hard to reconcile his appearance, almost donnish but for his shackles and grey prison uniform, with his dogs-of-war exploits in Sierra Leone and Angola which made headlines worldwide. This was the man, after all, who intended to land here, this steamy West African outpost, in swashbuckling style, leading nearly 70 mercenaries on a plane loaded with guns and ammunition – had he not been arrested, that is, in Harare on March 7, 2004, when the plot unravelled spectacularly. 'Where do you want me,' he asked cheerfully. Prison guards led their star inmate to a chair in front of the dock. Behind him President Obiang glowered from a framed photograph hanging on the wall. Dispensing with small talk, Mann pushed his specs to the top of his nose with his handcuffs and announced: 'I do want to talk to you about this, absolutely. I think things have gone beyond the stage of telling tales out of school.' And so his extraordinary story unspooled. His mission, he said, was to replace Obiang with Severo Moto Nsa, an Equatoguinean opposition leader living in Madrid. Equatorial Guinea has the third-largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, making it a valuable prize. Along with shady tycoons, others said to be part of the murky affair included the disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer, politicians at the heart of the then New Labour government and Lady Thatcher's son, Mark, who was later arrested. Mann told me Sir Mark Thatcher, whom he described as 'a very naughty boy', was at the heart of the plot, claiming he was obsessed with how best to exploit commercial interests in Equatorial Guinea after the takeover. Mann would get a generous cut too, of course. And he outlined the role of London-based Lebanese oil tycoon Eli Calil, now dead, who counted British politicians including Peter Mandelson among his circle of influential friends. Calil and Sir Mark Thatcher, said Mann, 'have let me down very badly. It is these I feel most bitter about because of their intimate involvement in all this'. After his arrest in Zimbabwe Mann famously smuggled a letter to his wife from his Harare prison cell demanding 'a large splodge of wonga' from 'Smelly', 'Scratcher' and others to get him out. 'Smelly is Eli Calil,' confirmed Mann. 'It is the name my wife gave him. She is very good at assigning names to people. And yes, Thatcher was known as Scratcher.' But the 'wonga' was not forthcoming and, four years on, Mann's fury was still raw as he spoke that day. 'When you are on an expedition and get stuck half way up a mountain you don't expect the others on the expedition to take down their tents, roll up their sleeping bags and go back to London,' said Mann. 'That has made me fantastically angry. Those two should be here in shackles as well.' But while he spoke expansively about the coup plot, he clouded when it came to matters personal. Anxious not to upset his hosts, he made light of the conditions he endured and said he was being treated quite well. Even being denied access to the exercise yard was a source of mirth. 'It's OK,' he said, and getting up to move across the room, laughed: 'I just walk up and down my cell like this. No problem.' It was stiff-upper-lip in excelsis. Could we have expected anything less? The English public school system and his military training had taught Mann, a scion of the Watney Mann brewing family, all about resilience. But how did he stop himself going insane? Or losing hope? 'Ah, that's the secret,' he said wistfully. 'I've got seven children in England and I miss them desperately.' His wife had not visited, neither in Equatorial Guinea nor during his incarceration in Zimbabwe. 'I don't want her to, and have told her that. I don't want her to see me this way.' It was at this point in our interview that the minister of national security, Manuel Nguema Mba, who was observing from the back of the courtroom, decided it was time Mann was returned to his cell. 'The minister has much to do today,' said an aide. 'He is very busy at the moment.' Just how busy became clear later in the day when it emerged that police had apparently foiled another possible coup. A car shipped from Spain had been intercepted containing hidden guns and ammunition. It served as a reminder that covetous eyes were always focused on the former Spanish colony, dismissed on the world stage as an 'insignificant' microstate before the discovery of two vast oil fields transformed its fortunes. It was impossible not to feel desperately sorry for Mann, at heart a romantic adventurer, as he was led back to his life of solitary confinement. A few months later he was jailed for 34 years. Some cast Mann as a Wodehousian figure, a bumbling Bertie Wooster. But he was much smarter than that and managed to convince the Obiang regime that he could help snare the two men that they wanted to throw into Black Beach above all others – Thatcher and Calil. After only 15 months Mann was pardoned by the dictator he had tried to overthrow and returned to his family in England, where he was introduced to his infant son, Arthur, who had been born while he was in prison in Zimbabwe. Officially, the Equatorial Guinea regime freed Mann on compassionate grounds because of his need for medical treatment. Many observers felt the early release had been Mann's reward for his willingness to identify traitors inside the country who were in on the coup. I saw him again a year or so later at a party in London. Once again he laughed and joked about his ordeal. We spoke a few times afterwards, once when he sought advice on becoming a newspaper foreign correspondent. Clearly his experience had not dented his appetite for adventure. Yesterday I spoke to Jim Nally, writer and film director who assisted Mann with his memoirs. He said he tried 'every trick in the book' to get Mann to 'open up'. 'I felt that discussing his homecoming might help. He kept putting it off. He didn't want to 'do this' at home. We finally agreed to meet in the office of an old friend. 'We were led to an office with a large leather couch. It was the first time we hadn't sat at a table. Notebook, pen and tape recorder primed, I asked him to start with his journey back to the UK. He broke down. I've never seen a man weep for 90 minutes before. 'Head between knees, body convulsing with raw grief, he kept apologising. And asking if 'the chaps outside' could see. I reassured him that there were no other witnesses. 'Simon could justify everything except what his time away did to his wife and children. He swore me to secrecy about what happened that day – but deep down I think he'd want them to know.'
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Simon Mann, mercenary behind failed ‘wonga coup', dies aged 72
Simon Mann, an Eton and Sandhurst-educated ex-SAS officer, who led a botched coup involving Margaret Thatcher's son to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, has died. Mann, who was 72, led a group of 70 fellow mercenaries who were arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 for attempting to topple Equatorial Guinea's despotic president, Teodoro Obiang. Mann and his friend Mark Thatcher admitted involvement in the attempted plot, which became known as the 'wonga coup'. When the plot was revealed, Obiang threatened to eat Mann's testicles and drag his naked body through the streets. Mann served more than five years in two of the world's most notorious jails before being pardoned by Obiang himself. He had previously served in the Scots Guards and the SAS before setting up a number of security firms specialised in protecting oil installations. In March 2004 Mann, Nick du Toit and three other South African mercenaries plotted Obiang's overthrow with international financial backers and the tacit approval of at least three governments, most notably Spain. The coup involved flying into the former Spanish colony in a plane loaded with arms and more than 50 black 'Buffalo soldiers' – former members of the now disbanded South African defence forces' elite 32 battalion– to replace Obiang with an exiled opposition activist called Severo Moto. In return, the plotters and their backers were hoping to tap into Equatorial Guinea's reserves of oil and natural gas. But their plane was intercepted by the Zimbabweans at Harare airport. A jubilant President Robert Mugabe threw Mann and his fellow conspirators into jail before handing them over to Equatorial Guinea where a court sentenced the mercenary to 34 years in jail. In a note sent out to his legal team while he was being held, Mann implicated Thatcher, whom he referred to by the name Scratcher, in the coup. The note also pleaded for a 'large splodge of wonga' and that Thatcher use his influence to secure his release. In his trial, Mann admitted he had been approach by Ely Calil, a Lebanese oil tycoon who was a friend of Moto, who regarded himself as head of Equatorial Guinea's government in exile. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Thatcher was alleged to have paid for a helicopter to fly Moto from Equatorial Guinea during the plan coup. He was fined and given a four-year suspended sentence for his part in the coup after admitting breaking anti-mercenary legislation. But he claimed he was only unwittingly involved in the coup plot. In 2006 the plot was dramatised in Coup!, a TV movie written by the comic John Fortune. After his pardon, Mann returned to the UK. He was married three times and had nine children. MailOnline reported that he had died earlier this week while exercising in a gym.
