Simon Mann, mercenary in the back of failed ‘wonga coup’, dies elderly 72

Simon Mann, an Eton and Sandhurst-educated ex-SAS officer, who led a botched coup involving Margaret Thatcher’s son to overthrow the federal government of Equatorial Guinea, has died elderly 72.

Mann led a gaggle of 70 fellow mercenaries who had been arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 for making an attempt to topple Equatorial Guinea’s despotic president, Teodoro Obiang.

Mann and his buddy Mark Thatcher admitted involvement within the tried plot, which was referred to as the “wonga coup”. When the plot was once printed, Obiang threatened to devour Mann’s testicles and drag his bare frame during the streets.

Mann served greater than 5 years in two of the sector’s maximum infamous jails sooner than being pardoned by way of Obiang himself.

He had in the past served within the Scots Guards and the SAS sooner than putting in a lot of safety companies specialized in protective oil installations.

In March 2004 Mann, Nick du Toit and 3 different South African mercenaries plotted Obiang’s overthrow with global monetary backers and the tacit approval of a minimum of 3 governments, maximum significantly Spain.

The coup concerned flying into the previous Spanish colony in a aircraft loaded with fingers and greater than 50 black “Buffalo soldiers” – former individuals of the now disbanded South African defence forces’ elite 32 battalion– to exchange Obiang with an exiled opposition activist referred to as Severo Moto.

In go back, the plotters and their backers had been hoping to faucet into Equatorial Guinea’s reserves of oil and herbal gasoline. But their aircraft was once intercepted by way of the Zimbabweans at Harare airport. A jubilant President Robert Mugabe threw Mann and his fellow conspirators into prison sooner than handing them over to Equatorial Guinea the place a court docket sentenced the mercenary to 34 years in prison.

In a notice despatched out to his prison workforce whilst he was once being held, Mann implicated Thatcher, whom he referred to by way of the identify Scratcher, within the coup. The notice additionally pleaded for a “large splodge of wonga” and that Thatcher use his affect to safe his liberate.

In his trial, Mann admitted he have been method by way of Ely Calil, a Lebanese oil magnate who was once a pal of Moto, who appeared himself as head of Equatorial Guinea’s executive in exile.

Thatcher was once purported to have paid for a helicopter to fly Moto from Equatorial Guinea all through the deliberate coup. He was once fined and given a four-year suspended sentence for his section within the coup after admitting breaking anti-mercenary law. But he claimed he was once best unwittingly concerned within the plot.

In 2006 the plot was once dramatised in Coup!, a TV film written by way of the comedian John Fortune.

After his pardon, Mann returned to the United Kingdom. He was once married 3 times and had 9 youngsters. MailOnline reported that he had died previous this week whilst exercising in a gymnasium.