Coup plot mercenary Mann is freed from African jail

SIMON Mann, mercenary soldier and former Scots Guards officer, will today fly home to Britain after being pardoned by presidential decree after serving fewer than 18 months of a 34½-year prison sentence for trying to topple the repressive head of state of Equatorial Guinea.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, dictator of the tiny but oil-rich West African country, announced the release of Eton-educated Mann, 56, on his government's website. Mann, said Nguema, had been pardoned on "humanitarian grounds."

He added that the son of a former English cricket captain, scion of a wealthy family of brewers and former SAS officer, had "shown sufficient and credible signs of repentance and a desire to take his place in society".

Government spokesman Federico Abaga said yesterday: "He is being let out of prison today. Once he has left prison he will have 24 hours to leave the country. I don't know where he will go. He is British, so I suppose he will go there."

Jose Olo Obono, the chief prosecutor in Mann's trial, said a private plane arrived yesterday in the capital carrying Mann's wife, Amanda, and his sister Sarah.

Mann's family members were "overjoyed at the prospect of finally welcoming Simon home after 5½ long years away. Everyone is profoundly grateful to the president and the government of Equatorial Guinea," they said in a statement.

Analysts had predicted Mann's early release at the time of his trial last year because he revealed details of the plot, fingering his co-conspirators, including Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Adam Roberts, author of The Wonga Coup, an account of Mann's plot to overthrow Nguema and become incredibly rich, said last night that the Spanish, South African, British and American governments knew in advance about the coup attempt "and perhaps even supported Mann and his plotters".

Mann admitted at his trial that his share of the spoils, if the mercenaries had succeeded, was to have been a $15 million "success fee" plus lucrative security contracts from the new Equatorial Guinea government.

In 2004 a plane carrying Mann and 66 mercenaries was intercepted in Zimbabwe en route to Equatorial Guinea. The men, who had expected to pick up arms in Harare, the Zimbabwe capital, were arrested and imprisoned in terrible conditions without trial.

Mann managed to smuggle a message out to co-conspirator Sir Mark saying a "splodge of wonga" – a euphemism for a lot of money – would be necessary to spring the mercenaries from Zimbabawe's Chikurubi Prison. If Thatcher failed, said Mann, "we are f*****."

Mann's great fear was that Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe would send him to Equatorial Guinea, and into that state's notorious Black Beach Prison, where inmates are more likely to come out dead than alive.

In 2007 Mr Mugabe did extradite him, in a Mann-for-oil deal.

Sir Mark pleaded guilty in a South African court to breaking anti-mercenary legislation in by agreeing to finance a helicopter.

He denied any knowledge of the plot and was fined and given a suspended sentenced.

The Equatorial Guinea conspirators had hoped to be paid well for toppling Nguema in order to secure access on behalf of shadowy backers to the country's oil and mineral wealth.

Equatorial Guinea has just half a million residents, but it is Africa's third-leading oil producer and has been dubbed the "Kuwait of Africa," since oil was discovered in the 1990s – yet the rate of infant deaths has actually increased since then, according to UN figures.

Later this month, Equatorial Guinea is scheduled to hold presidential elections, which Nguema will win.

He won the previous vote in 2002 with 97.1 per cent of the ballot.

Nguema himself took power in a 1979 coup in which then-president Francisco Macias Nguema, his uncle, was assassinated by a firing squad.

Mann's pardon came the eve of an official visit to the country by South African president Jacob Zuma, who has secured the release of at least four South Africans who were members of Mann's coup plot team.

One mercenary, German arms trader Gerhard Merz, died in Black Beach Prison after being severely tortured.