Briton Simon Mann, the alleged brains behind a plot to stage a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, was on Friday sentenced to seven years in jail by a Zimbabwe court for attempting to illegally purchase weapons.
A group of 65 other suspected mercenaries was sentenced to 12 months in jail while the two men who flew a plane to Harare in March to pick up weapons were given 16-month jail sentences.
Mann was convicted two weeks ago on charges of attempting to illegally purchase weapons that prosecutors argued were to be used to topple President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Malabo.
”The accused was the author of the whole transaction. He was caught while trying to take the firearms out of the country,” said Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe as he handed down the sentence.
He said the offences ”were well planned and well executed and that must be reflected in the penalty”.
Educated at one of Britain’s top private schools and a former member of the crack SAS troops, Simon Mann was equally at home in London’s best drawing rooms as in less salubrious spots in Africa.
Over the past few months, his circumstances have changed beyond recognition — from the high life in Cape Town surrounded by the expatriate glitterati including Mark Thatcher to solitary confinement in Chikurubi’s maximum security prison.
The son of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher was arrested in South Africa on August 25 for allegedly bankrolling the coup plot in Equatorial Guinea.
Thatcher’s name was dragged in after Mann allegedly smuggled out a letter from jail urging that those supposedly involved in the plot, including ”Scratcher” — a presumed reference to Thatcher — should ”pull their weight”, media reports said.
”Our situation is not very good and very URGENT. 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 … Scratcher” and other people allegedly involved, have.
Mann reportedly said bribes could settle the affair, evoking a call for a ”large splodge of wonga” and adding: ”Now it’s bad times and everyone has to pull their f!!!ing weight.”
In England, he owns Inchmery, an estate that once belonged to the world-famous Rothschild banking family.
The greying former soldier is linked to mercenary and security outfits set up in 1989 through 1998.
He and Nick du Toit, a South African being held as a co-conspirator in Equatorial Guinea, helped set up Executive Outcomes, which operated from Pretoria in South Africa and helped the Angolan government protect its oil installations from rebels during that country’s long civil war.
Executive Outcomes was also involved through its sister company Sandline International in Sierra Leone where it fought off rebels in the mid-1990s on behalf of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
The son of an English cricket captain, Mann — who holds both British and South African passports — was educated at Eton. He went on for officer training at the prestigious Sandhurst Academy.
He joined the Special Air Service (SAS) and is reported to have served in Cyprus, Germany, Norway, Canada, central America and Northern Ireland before leaving the army in 1981.
Reports say Mann worked briefly selling advanced computer software before accepting contracts for security work.
He is also featured in a film reconstruction for British television of the Bloody Sunday massacre in northern Ireland in 1972. – Sapa
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