A very British coup? Top Tories dragged into brewing heir's African adventure
By Kim Sengupta
19 July 2004


A former captain in the SAS, with connections to the British establishment, will face court in Zimbabwe this week, accused of planning a coup in an oil-rich African country.

In a gripping tale of crime and politics, the trial of Simon Mann will hear allegations about a murder plot against a dictator accused of cannibalism. Mr Mann, whose father was an England cricket captain, is the scion of the Watney brewing empire. With 69 other men, he has been charged with trying to overthrow Teodoro Obiang, the President of Equatorial Guinea.

Their fellow conspirators, it is claimed, were the President's relations, Severo Moto Nsa, an exiled opposition leader, and Ely Calil, a London-based millionaire oil trader, who is a former financial adviser to Jeffrey Archer, the disgraced peer who was a former deputy chairman of the Tory party. The prize, it is said, was not just power, but vast sums from oil concessions.

The case has other connections with prominent Tories. Mr Mann has asked for help from Mark Thatcher, his neighbour in Constantia, one of the most expensive suburbs of Cape Town, and David Hart, the Old Etonian businessman who was an adviser to Margaret Thatcher during the miners' strike. Mr Mann's friends are being advised by Lord Bell, Mrs Thatcher's former public relations guru.

In a letter from the Chikurubi prison on 31 March, Mr Mann, 51, told his wife, Amanda, and his legal team: "Our situation is not good and it is very URGENT. They [the lawyers] get no reply from Smelly and Scratcher [who] asked them to ring back after the Grand Prix race was over! This is not going well. I must say once again: what will get us out is MAJOR CLOUT. We need heavy influence of the sort that ... Smelly, Scratcher ... David Hart, and it needs to be used heavily and now. Once we get into a real trial scenario we are f****d." South African colleagues of Mr Mann, say Scratcher is Mark Thatcher, and Smelly is Mr Calil.

Lord Bell's organisation said Mr Thatcher and Mr Hart had no knowledge of the alleged coup plot, and had merely been asked by Mr Mann for help. Mr Calil, of Lebanese extraction, who made his fortune in Nigerian oil, lives in a �12m house in Chelsea. Imran Khan, his London solicitor, said: "We will vigorously defend the allegations, which are without foundation."

Mr Obiang was named in a US Senate investigation into money-laundering involving a Washington financial house, Riggs Bank. Investigators said the President and his family had "misappropriated" at least �35m from national oil revenues. Opposition groups accuse him of eating the testicles of executed prisoners in the belief it will give him martial prowess. President Obiang is represented by the London law firm Penningtons, which has launched a civil action in London for damages against Mr Mann and Mr Calil for an alleged conspiracy to assassinate their client.

Mr Mann and his fellow defendants were arrested at Harare airport when they flew in from South Africa. The authorities said their chartered Boeing 737, which was impounded, was to fly mortars, Kalashnikovs, and 30,000 rounds of ammunition to Equatorial Guinea.

The men have been charged under public order and security laws, as well as immigration, firearms and aviation offences. If found guilty, they could be fined and jailed. But reports in Harare say President Robert Mugabe has agreed to a personal request from President Obiang to extradite the men, if they are convicted, to Equatorial Guinea, where they would face the death penalty.

Eleven years ago, Mr Mann set up a security company, Executive Outcomes, with a businessman, Tony Buckingham, which became involved in some of the most high-profile conflicts in Africa. It made millions protecting oil installations in Angola from Unita rebels, and operated against insurgents for the Sierra Leone government. A subsidiary company, Sandline International - set up with a former Scots Guard officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer - was at the centre of the so-called "arms to Sierra Leone" affair in the late 1990s.

Mr Mann and the other accused insist they knew nothing about the Equatorial Guinea plot. Instead, they were simply organising security for a diamond mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The arms, bought for $190,000 (�101,500) from a state-owned company in Zimbabwe were intended for the security guards.

In the Equatorial Guinea capital, Malabo, police arrested Nick du Toit, a South African who worked with Mr Mann at Executive Outcomes. Mr du Toit had been meeting the ruling family, he claims, to negotiate fishing rights and a contract for customs control. The Equatorial government say he was plotting with members of the clan who did not want Mr Obiang's son, Teodorin, to succeed him, and he was also trying to suborn the President's Moroccan bodyguards.

In an alleged confession, Mr Mann said he met Mr Calil in London, and he offered to introduce him to Mr Moto. Mr Mann says he was introduced to an opposition figure who claimed he was forced to watch Mr Obiang rape his wife.

The statement continues: "I met Severo Moto ... He is a good and honest man ... they asked me if I could help escort Severo Moto home at a given moment when simultaneously there would be an uprising of military and civilians against Obiang. I agreed and I tried to help the cause."

Mr du Toit has also allegedly confessed in Malabo, describing a coup d'etat in which Mr Obiang would be flown to Spain, where the exiles are based, "if not killed in the operation". Lawyers for Mr Mann and Mr du Toit say the statements were beaten out of them.

Coincidentally just last night there was a show on the History Channel that was about mercenaries. A large part of the show dealt with the company Executive Outcomes and their operations in Africa. It's a VERY interesting program.

-Bob F.


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The quality of British journalism is absolutely frightful. It is so difficult to ferret out the actual story from the tangle of socialist agenda-pushing and web-weaving that my eyes started to hurt before I got through the article. How can an educated populace continue to tolerate such obvious s**t from their media (that is not just a question for the UK)?

Having said that, can someone explain what it has to do with Zim, clearly and concisely?

TRADEMARKTEXAN-"How can an educated populace continue to tolerate such obvious s**t from their media (that is not just a question for the UK)?"

What makes you think we(U.S.) and the British, have an "educated populace?" I haven't noticed that for many, many years.

L.W.

Leanwolf, that's an excellent point...

I made that post early this morning before I had my coffee...

JOHANNESBURG - The families of suspected mercenaries held in Zimbabwe on coup-plotting charges went before South Africa's highest court yesterday to make a last desperate appeal to bring the men home.
The appeal to the Constitutional Court came just two days before the 70 men go on trial in Harare for allegedly plotting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.
Lawyer Francois Joubert argued before the 10-judge panel that it must order President Thabo Mbeki's government to seek the extradition of the men to save them from a possible death sentence.
"This country is in a position to apply for extradition," Joubert told the court, arguing that such a measure would prevent Zimbabwe from handing over the men for trial to Malabo where they could face the death penalty.
"If it emerges that they are extradited to Equatorial Guinea, they will be at substantial risk of facing execution," said Joubert.
"We have this very real fear that should one wait until the sentence is imposed, it will be too late," he argued.
The 70 men, all carrying South African passports but whose countries of origin include Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, were arrested on March 7 at Harare airport where their plane had stopped off to pick up weapons from Zimbabwe's state arms manufacturer.
The suspected mercenaries deny the coup plotting charges and contend they were en route to guard a diamond mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
South Africa's high court in June rejected the families' court bid, citing lack of evidence.
At yesterday's hearing, the judges asked the lawyers to spell out their rationale for forcing the government to intervene and suggested there was no urgency, given that the Zimbabwe court had yet to hear the case or hand down a verdict.
"Are you saying that this court must tell the government how to conduct its foreign affairs?" Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson asked.
Family members said they did not expect a ruling in their favour.
"I am not holding out very much hope," said Marge Payne, wife of co-pilot Ken Payne.
"I think they will step in only when the death penalty comes in."
Zimbabwean authorities have charged the men with breaching the security, firearms, aviation and immigration law and they are scheduled to go on trial on Wednesday.
If convicted the men could face a fine or a five-year prison term, but the real question is whether Zimbabwe will then hand them over to Equatorial Guinea for trial.
The 'Harare 70' include Briton Simon Mann, who was allegedly to lead the alleged mercenary force to Malabo to join 15 men sent there as an advance team in the plot to topple Obiang, the veteran leader of the oil-rich country.
Mann however has disassociated himself from the families' court case against the South African government and his legal team is rumoured to be negotiating his extradition to Britain.

That explains it. Thanks.

More news items about the "Zim 70" here:



http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/Home/



To be blunt, these guys are in some deep trouble.



-Bob F.







'Mercenaries' saga: Key dates

20/07/2004 09:59 - (SA)



Harare - A group of 70 suspected mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe four months ago on charges of plotting a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea go on trial on Wednesday.



Here are some of the key events leading up to the trial of the "Harare 70".



March 7:



Zimbabwe authorities announce the arrest of 70 suspected mercenaries. 67 of the men were on board a Boeing private jet that had landed at Harare international airport from South Africa to pick up weapons. The three other men, including the alleged leader Simon Mann, were already in Zimbabwe and waiting for their arrival at the airport.



Zimbabwe maintains that the men were en route to join 15 others in Equatorial Guinea to topple President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.



March 9:



Obiang announces the arrest in Malabo of 15 men he says were plotting to overthrow him and accuses opposition leader Severo Moto, who is living in exile in Madrid, of being behind the attempted coup.



A man identified as South African Nick du Toit, 48, the alleged leader of the group of 15, appears on television in Equatorial Guinea, saying the mercenaries were on a mission to abduct Obiang and force him into exile.



March 13:



Obiang says the 15 suspected mercenaries face the death penalty, adding: "If we have to kill them, we will kill them."



March 18:



South Africa denies a report in Spain's El Pais newspaper that the alleged leader of the mercenary force, Nick du Toit, had died from torture in Malabo's notorious Black Beach prison.



Malabo announces that one of the men, German national Gerhard Eugen Nershz, had died from cerebral malaria.



The newspaper also says that one of the South Africans in the group, that also includes Armenians and Angolans, was working for the president's security detail.



March 23:



At their first court appearance in the Chikurubi maximum security prison on the outskirts of Harare, the 70 suspected mercenaries are formally charged with illegal possession and purchase of weapons, and with violations of firearms, immigration and civil aviation legislation.



April 7:



Equatorial Guinea's interior minister says the alleged mercenaries planned to kill the president and his entire family.



April 8:



Zimbabwe's justice minister says he will investigate allegations by some of the 70 detained men that they were beaten in prison.



April 13:



The 70 suspected mercenaries make another court appearance in Chikurubi.



April 27:



Lawyers representing the 70 suspected mercenaries request that they be released and produce a witness who testifies that the men were on their way to the Democratic Republic of Congo to guard a diamond mine.



April 29:



Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe agrees to extradite the 70 men to face trial in Equatorial Guinea following talks with Obiang in Bulawayo, a reliable source reveals.



May 12:



Zimbabwe prosecutors claim that the alleged leader of the group of 70 men, Simon Mann, had signed a contract with opposition leader Severo Moto to topple the regime in Equatorial Guinea.



June 9:



The Pretoria High court rejects a request by the families of the 70 mercenaries held in Zimbabwe to force President Thabo Mbeki's government to seek their extradition to South Africa.



June 23:



Trial date for the 70 mercenaries is set for July 19.



July 9:



Equatorial Guinea files complaints in Britain and Spain, citing opposition leader Severo Moto and businessman Elie Calil of Lebanese origin, management consultant Greg Wales and Simon Mann for being behind the alleged coup plot.



July 10:



The trial of the 70 mercenaries is postponed to July 21.



July 13:



Trial of 12 prison guards charged with beating some of the 70 suspected mercenaries is postponed to July 27.



July 19:



South Africa's constitutional court hears appeal from families of suspected mercenaries who want to force President Thabo Mbeki's government to seek the extradition of the men from Zimbabwe.



Edited by Duane Heath

The New York Times

Where Coup Plots Are Routine, One That Is Not
By MICHAEL WINES

http://www.sandline.com/hotlinks/NYT-Coup_plot_1.html

Published: March 20, 2004 (Correction Appended)

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea, March 17 � This malarial West African dictatorship quashed another coup attempt this month, which is like saying the corner 7-Eleven served up another Slurpee. Quashed coups (five since 1996) are a political staple here, so routine that some say the government stages and then quashes them to burnish its image of invincibility.

But the coup this month was different. Nobody could make this coup up.

The coup attempt of 2004 features a dysfunctional ruling family, a Lamborghini-driving, rap-music-producing heir apparent and a bitter political opponent in exile who insists that Equatorial Guinea is run by a gonad-eating cannibal. It is said to involve a Lebanese front company, a British financier, an opposition figure living in exile in Spain and some 80 mercenaries from South Africa, Germany, Armenia and Kazakhstan.

Its messy denouement unfolded not in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea's capital, but 2,100 miles away, aboard an American jet in Zimbabwe.

With such a polyglot cast, this whodunit has become almost a parlor game among Africa watchers. Not since Christmas 1975, when Moroccan palace guards shot 150 suspected plotters in the city soccer stadium to a band's rendition of "Those Were the Days, My Friend" has a botched takeover set tongues wagging so briskly.

"Normally, the people involved are just rounded up, paraded before the state media, and then they disappear forever," said Patrick Smith, the editor of the London-based newsletter Africa Confidential, which has scooped competitors on the coup's juiciest details. "This one is the most extraordinary ever."

Until lately, few cared. Equatorial Guinea, a Spanish colony for 190 years, was seen as a sweltering backwater, so destitute that many citizens foraged for food. But in the mid-1990's American drillers struck oil, and everything changed.

Today, this Maryland-size nation has $5 billion in American oil rigs and drilling gear parked offshore, pumping 350,000 barrels of petroleum a day. Washington is reopening an embassy closed in the mid-1990's after the ambassador, a vocal human rights critic, began getting death threats.

Most Equatorial Guineans remain subsistence-level survivors. But the president since 1979, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, owns mansions in Maryland and Virginia and banks up to $700 million a year in oil revenues in personally controlled accounts.

As Mr. Obiang said at a news conference on Wednesday in his meticulously restored ceremonial palace, having money is a mixed blessing, seeing as so many people want to take it away. Participants in this month's quashed coup were promised a share of the oil wealth if their takeover had succeeded, he said.

Instead of benefiting those it is supposed to, "it is causing them a lot of problems," he said through an interpreter.

Yet, toppling Equatorial Guinea's government would be no mean feat, because removing the president would barely scratch the surface. The military is peppered with Mr. Obiang's cousins and nephews. One of his sons is the natural resources minister. A brother-in-law is ambassador to Washington.

A brother, Armengol Ondo Nguema, is a top internal security official and, according to a 1999 State Department report, a torturer whose minions urinated on their victims, sliced their ears and rubbed oil on their bodies to lure stinging ants.

Finally, a second son, Teodoro Nguemo Obiang, is the infrastructure minister and his father's anointed successor. To the dismay of some relatives, he also is a rap music entrepreneur and bon vivant, fond of Lamborghinis and long trips to Hollywood and Rio de Janeiro, who shows few signs of following his father's iron-fisted tradition.

On its face, this month's coup seems to threaten none of these leaders. Indeed, the 80-odd mercenaries said to be the coup's advance force are now in prisons in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea where, if human rights reports are any guide, it is possible they will face torture, if not execution.

Equatorial Guinea's government said Wednesday that one captured mercenary, a German held in a Malabo jail, had died of cerebral malaria in a local hospital. But this is among Africa's most opaque regimes, and long one of its most repressive. The only real constant is that appearances are deceiving.

The outside world first learned of the coup attempt on March 6, when Zimbabwe officials said they had seized an old Boeing 727 jet with American markings after it stopped in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, on a flight north.

Inside and waiting on the tarmac outside, the government said, were 67 mercenaries, mostly South Africans and Angolans. They were said by Zimbabwe to have landed in Harare to pick up a cache of weapons illicitly purchased from government weapons makers.

Mr. Obiang's security men then announced that they had arrested 15 more people � Germans, Kazakhs and others � in Equatorial Guinea, thwarting a plot to kill the president and take over the government. It soon became clear that the flight had originated in South Africa, and that intelligence officials there, in Zimbabwe and in Angola had tipped Mr. Obiang to the impending coup.

Two mercenaries stood out. In Zimbabwe, the plane had been met by Simon Mann, a British expatriate and onetime aide to senior British military leaders. Mr. Mann is a flamboyant soldier of fortune, a figure in books and even a cameo actor in a war movie. In the 1990's, two companies tied to him, Executive Outcomes and Sandline International, reclaimed Angolan oil fields and diamond mines from rebel armies and imposed peace in war-racked Sierra Leone in the absence of a United Nations force.

In Equatorial Guinea, the crucial plotter was identified as Nick du Toit, a South African special forces veteran who once worked for Executive Outcomes. This time, Mr. du Toit worked for Mr. Mann in a company called Logo Logistics. An official in that company, who goes by two names, has told reporters that it bought the Boeing 727 in Kansas this year as part of an innocent contract to protect gold miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo � not to overthrow a government.

Whatever the truth, Mr. du Toit appeared on state-controlled television in Malabo last week to make a dramatic, seemingly case-closing confession. The entire plot, he said, was hatched by Severo Moto, an Equatorial Guinean opposition figure and longtime fomenter of quashed coups who lives in exile in Madrid. Mr. Moto's coup was said to be financed by $5 million from a British businessman, washed through a front company in Lebanon.

"It wasn't a question of taking the life of the head of state, but of spiriting him away, taking him to Spain and forcing him into exile," said Mr. du Toit, who has not been seen since.

Mr. Moto makes no secret of his hatred of President Obiang: on Spanish radio this month, he called him a demon who "systematically eats his political rivals."

"He has just devoured a police commissioner. I say `devoured,' as this commissioner was buried without his testicles and brain," he said, adding that Mr. Obiang hungered for his body parts as well.

"We are in the hands of a cannibal," he warned.

That said, Mr. Moto also told Spanish radio that he had played no role in the latest coup against Mr. Obiang. In turn, his denial underscored an intriguing omission in Mr. du Toit's own confession.

According to Africa Confidential, Mr. Smith's London-based newsletter, the same Mr. du Toit who is accused of plotting to overthrow the government held a contract with that same government to train Equatorial Guinea's paramilitary and customs forces. The contract was reported to have been signed by Armengol Ondo Nguema � President Obiang's half brother, the head of internal security and perhaps the nation's most feared man.

Some Guinea watchers say Mr. du Toit played a deadly game clumsily, trying to penetrate Equatorial Guinea's inner leadership as part of the coup plot, and lost. Others find it inconceivable that the wily Mr. Armengoldid not know what Mr. du Toit had up his sleeve, and say he was either a willing participant or was stringing Mr. du Toit along.

There is nothing to indicate that Mr. du Toit's contract to train the military of the government he sought to overthrow is untoward. Indeed, President Obiang said at Wednesday's news conference that he knew "for sure" that his brother was not involved in any way with any venture involving Mr. du Toit.

"I think it's not true," he said. "Because if it was like this, I would have known."

Still, a jefe in a place like this always looks over his shoulder. After all, the sole successful coup here occurred in 1979, when Mr. Obiang himself, then a lowly lieutenant colonel, overthrew and executed the self-proclaimed "Unique Miracle," Francisco Macias Nguema.

Mr. Nguema was his uncle. It was a family affair.

An article yesterday about a foiled coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea misstated the status of a company tied to one of the mercenaries accused in the plot. Sandline International, a private military contractor cited for its activity in Africa in the 1990�s, is still functioning; it is not defunct.