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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Simon Mann obituary
The career of the former soldier and mercenary Simon Mann might have seemed unexceptional in the pages of John Buchan or Rider Haggard but unfortunately for him it ended not in the 19th century but in a jail cell in post-colonial 21st-century Africa. Mann, who has died aged 72 following a heart attack, spent five years in prisons in Zimbabwe and then Equatorial Guinea between 2004 and 2009 for his part in the attempted 'Wonga coup', so called because of his unavailing plea for his friends, including Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of the former prime minister, to stump up funds – 'a splodge of wonga' – to rescue him following a failed attempt to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of the west African oil state. It was, he admitted, 'a fuck up'. The nicknames of those friends were in a letter he attempted to smuggle to his wife from a prison in Harare: Thatcher was Scratcher, allegedly because of the adolescent acne he had suffered at school, and there was also Smelly and Nosher, names perhaps more PG Wodehouse than Bulldog Drummond. But they did not save Mann from torture in Zimbabwe or isolation at the notorious Black Beach prison in Equatorial Guinea. The Sunday Times in 2011 said: 'Everything about [Mann] is preposterous, fruity, bonkers and slightly frightful,' but his friends found him engaging, intelligent, though easily bored, and wry. He had a military career with the Scots Guards and the SAS before seeking adventure and wealth as the organiser of a firm providing mercenaries, mainly from South Africa, to protect oil and mining companies in Angola. Had the coup to overthrow the tyrannical and corrupt president of Equatorial Guinea succeeded, Mann would have received a pay off in the region of £15m. He was a son of privilege, a scion of the London brewery family whose company merged with Watney's. Both his father, George, and grandfather, Frank, had briefly been England and Middlesex cricket captains, in the days when only amateurs were considered suitable for team leadership. Both had served with the Scots Guards and had won the Military Cross, respectively in the first and second world wars. George Mann captained the MCC England party on a tour of South Africa in 1948-49 and met his future wife, Margaret (nee Clark), an heiress, on the boat taking the side back to Britain. Simon, their son, preferred rowing to cricket at Eton, where he was apparently known as 'Maps' because of his fascination with Africa and, according to a friend, the possibility of staging coups there. He proceeded to Sandhurst and a commission in the family regiment. Seeking a livelier challenge, Mann passed the demanding tests for the SAS and became a troop commander specialising in intelligence and counter-terrorism. He served around the world but left the army at the age of 28 in 1981 and started a security business offering protection to wealthy, mainly Arab, clients in Britain, returning to the army briefly to serve during the first Gulf war on the staff of the commander Sir Peter de la Billière. Later, as a sideline, Mann played Col Derek Wilford, the Parachute brigade commander, in Bloody Sunday, the 2002 Paul Greengrass film of the killings by the army at a Derry civil rights demonstration in 1972. In 1996 he teamed up with an oil executive, Tony Buckingham, to found a firm based in South Africa providing security and military support to governments to protect their interests. The company, Executive Outcomes, helped protect the oil wells of the Angolan government, under attack from Unita rebels. Four years later, Mann co-founded Sandline International, another security firm, with a British former officer, Lt Col Tim Spicer, providing military training and arms to the Sierra Leone government trying to keep control of the country's diamond fields. The profits enabled Mann to buy an estate on the Beaulieu River in Hampshire, but also took him back to South Africa, where he began recruiting mercenaries to overthrow the Obiang regime in Equatorial Guinea and replace it with one led by the insurgent leader Severo Moto. By then Mann was in his mid-50s and the whole operation was haphazard and misconceived. It included Mann checking out the price of some supplies at a branch of B&Q. The South African authorities were well aware what was going on – probably as a result of loose talk by the plotters around a hotel swimming pool – and the Zimbabwean government was alerted too, though it continued selling arms and ammunition to Mann and his colleagues. Friends of Mann, including Thatcher, provided funds, though Thatcher himself later claimed he thought he had been buying a helicopter merely for humanitarian work, an excuse which did not prevent him receiving a suspended sentence and a hefty fine for breaking anti-mercenary legislation. All went wrong after Mann and his band of 70 mercenaries touched down in Harare on the night of 7 March 2004 to pick up the arms. They were arrested, as was a further group already in Malabo, the Guinean capital. It was while he was awaiting trial that the notorious letter was written: 'Our situation is not good and it is very URGENT … it may be that getting us out comes down to a large splodge of wonga. Now it's bad times and everyone has to fucking well pull their full weight. Once we get into a real trial scenario we are fucked.' The letter was intercepted by the prison guards. No money was forthcoming from Scratcher, or Smelly, thought to be a reference to Ely Calil, a Nigerian-Lebanese oil tycoon. 'They let me down badly,' Mann complained later. 'They ought to be in shackles as well.' He said Thatcher had known perfectly well about the coup plan and had been part of the team management. He regretted the coup: 'When you go tiger shooting, you don't expect the tiger to win.' Four months after the band's arrest, Mann was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, later reduced to four, on two counts of buying firearms illegally – the other mercenaries faced short sentences. He had claimed the object of the mission was to protect diamond mines in the Congo. Mann later said he had confessed under duress and had been tortured and subjected to sensory deprivation, 'all the sort of stuff we used to do to each other at (the SAS in) Hereford.' But on his release in Zimbabwe in May 2007 he was immediately extradited to Equatorial Guinea. There he was sentenced to 34 years at Black Beach prison, where, for most prisoners, assaults were rife and food intermittent. There were even rumours that Obiang had a penchant for eating bits of his captives – which the dictator denied. Mann's imprisonment was not so harsh: he had access to books and to journalists; food was supplied from a luxury hotel, and he lunched with the country's security minister. It helped that by then he was admitting his guilt, naming names and expressing contrition. Within 15 months, in November 2009, Obiang freed him 'on humanitarian grounds' to receive medical treatment and see his family in Britain. Back home, Mann was able to meet his five-year-old son, Arthur, for the first time, and to reunite with his wife, Amanda, and six other children. His attempts to restart his career, however, were less successful: 'My former peers couldn't hire me, even in the back office,' he told the Times in 2023. 'It was 'look Simon, don't take it personally, but we spend a lot of time and money telling everyone we are not mercenaries.'' In 2011 he wrote a book on his experiences, Cry Havoc, and latterly was chairing a start-up company attempting to turn plastic waste into hydrogen. One of his friends was said to be Obiang. Mann is survived by Amanda (nee Freedman), who was his third wife and the mother of four of the seven children who also survive him. Simon Mann, army officer and mercenary, born 26 June 1952; died 8 May 2025
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Aussie tradie Caleb List who went missing in Ukraine is sentenced by Russian court
A Queensland builder who joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion before he went missing in April has been sentenced 'in absentia' by a Russian court. Caleb List signed up with the Ukrainian army following the Russian invasion in 2022, after having been rejected from joining the Australian Defence Force. The 25-year-old from Gladstone is believed to have died last month after being hit by artillery fire in a contested territory near the city of Izyum, in the Kharkiv region, though his body has not been found. On Friday, the self-declared Supreme Court of the Donetsk People's Republic - a far eastern Ukrainian region that is temporarily under Russian occupation - sentenced Mr List to 14 years in prison as a mercenary, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported. The court has previously sentenced other foreign volunteers who joined Ukrainian military to death. According to the Kyiv Post, international legal experts said that the findings of court were 'meaningless'. 'One international lawyer who has worked extensively in Ukraine and Russia said ''If there is no country – there is no court,'' and any international court that would review the case would immediately throw out the rulings,' the paper said. Since enlisting, Mr List had sent encrypted messages from Ukraine's trenches to Daily Mail Australia journalist Jonica Bray, sharing exclusive updates on his time in the war-ravaged country. Thousands of foreign fighters like Mr List had signed up to help defend Ukraine, despite warnings from their governments, including Australia, not to travel there. 'It's not as crazy as most people think,' he said about what day-to-day was like in a warzone that's seen almost one million people killed or wounded,' Caleb said. 'There are scary moments and bad thing happen around Ukraine every day, but it's a normal country and it still has to operate like one. 'The only thing is there's a giant war in the background.' The Aussie tradie spent anywhere from days to weeks in the trenches alongside both local soldiers and other foreign legion members of the army. 'It could be quiet. We could get bombed or the trench could get assaulted,' he said. 'Then I come home to the back lines, I do some training, eat some food, work on hobbies, call and message family, friends and other loved ones. 'Kind of like what normal people do on their weekends. Then, the cycle repeats itself.' Mr List said he decided to head to Europe in 2022 to fulfill his lifelong dream of one day becoming a soldier and participating in military action. His initial plan was to join the French Foreign Legion, but while on his way to France to sign up, Russia invaded Ukraine, and his whole life changed. While on a drunken night out in Poland, Mr List crossed the border and headed to a tent with the sign 'Legionnaire.' After about a month of basic training, he was transferred to the frontline, but kept the news from his family. Mr List said he used various encrypted apps to communicate because he believed that as an Australian, he had a bounty on his head. 'It puts my life in danger if they know where I am,' he said. 'I just become a target on pro-Russian Telegram [messaging apps] groups.' This week, Russia's defense ministry said its forces were advancing at key points along the front, and pro-Russian war bloggers said Russia had pierced Ukrainian lines between Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address, the heaviest frontline battles were around Pokrovsk and made no reference to any Russian advances. As Russia, Ukraine, the United States and European powers consider the sequencing of a possible end to the more than three-year conflict in Ukraine, the drone war continues and fighting is intensifying in some key areas of the front. Russia's defense ministry said 105 drones had been shot down over Russian regions between midnight and the early morning of Thursday, including 35 over the Moscow region. The previous day, Russia said it shot down well over 300 Ukrainian drones. Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow's mayor, said multiple drones had been shot down heading towards the capital, which along with the surrounding region has a population of 21 million people.
Free Malaysia Today
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Australia condemns Russia's jailing of Melbourne man
Foreign minister Penny Wong said they were appalled by the sham trial and 13-year sentence meted. (EPA Images pic) CANBERRA : Australia's foreign minister on Saturday condemned a 13-year prison sentence handed by a Russian court to an Australian citizen for fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. Oscar Jenkins, 33, will serve the sentence in a maximum-security prison after being found guilty by a Russian court of participating in an armed conflict as a mercenary, state prosecutors in a part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia said on Friday. Foreign minister Penny Wong said in a statement that Australia's government was 'appalled at the sham trial and 13-year sentence' given to Jenkins, previously a teacher in Melbourne. 'As a full serving member of the regular armed forces of Ukraine, Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war,' said Wong, a long-time strident critic of Russia's war against Ukraine. 'The Australian Government has made clear to Russia that Mr Jenkins must be given the protections afforded to him as a prisoner of war. Russia is obligated to treat him in accordance with international humanitarian law, including humane treatment,' the foreign minister said. She said Australia's government would work with Ukraine and the International Committee of the Red Cross to push for Jenkins' welfare and release. Jenkins was serving with Ukraine's military when he was captured by Russia last year as a prisoner of war, Australian media reported earlier this year. A video taken at the time showed him, dressed in combat uniform, being asked if he was a mercenary, reports said. Australia is one of the largest non-Nato contributors to the West's support for Ukraine and has been supplying aid, ammunition and defence equipment. It has banned exports of alumina and aluminium ores, including bauxite, to Russia, and has sanctioned about 1,000 Russian individuals and entities.
Times
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
How a Belfast-based private eye stopped Simon Mann's African coup
He was the hardened soldier of fortune set to bag millions for spearheading the military takeover of an oil-rich African state, but his plans were brought crashing down from a room in a house in Ireland. The veteran mercenary Simon Mann, who died this month, had secretly worked with Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of the former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, as he set out to topple the regime in Equatorial Guinea 21 years ago. When the Sunday Times journalist Barrie Penrose heard whispers that a heavily armed coup d'état was being planned in London, he asked Ian Withers, an Irish-based private eye who operated offices in Belfast and Dublin, to help him do some digging. Penrose connected Withers, a career investigator
ABC News
18-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
What's the future for Australian fighter Oscar Jenkins?
Australian fighter Oscar Jenkins has been tried as a mercenary and sentenced to 13 years in a Russian penal colony. The Australian government has called it a sham trial, insisting he's a prisoner of war, and a serving member of Ukraine's Armed Forces. Could he be included as part of the prisoner swap deals between Ukraine and Russia, following the talks in Turkiye last week? Guest: Dr Glenn Kolomeitz, international law consultant and defence analyst Dr Glenn Kolomeitz, international law consultant and defence analyst Producer: Teodora Agarici Mr Kolomeitz was a candidate at the 2025 federal election for the Jacqui Lambie Network.
