Briton Simon Mann, jailed for plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea, could be transferred home if Britain arrests others like Sir Mark Thatcher, the African state’s president said in an interview Sunday.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema told the Mail on Sunday that if Britain arrested Thatcher — son of former prime minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher — and Ely Calil, Mann could be sent back to a British jail.
He also said that Mann’s sentence could be reduced if he continues to ”collaborate” with his government.
Mann, a former special forces officer who attended Britain’s prestigious Eton school and the Sandhurst military academy, was jailed for 34 years in July for leading an abortive coup to oust the president in 2004.
Mann also implicated Thatcher, who was given a fine and a suspended sentence in South Africa in 2005 after pleading guilty to unwittingly helping to finance the plot.
”I’ll tell you what it will take for him to be allowed to leave my country,” the president said of Mann.
”If the British police arrest the people we say were also involved — Ely Calil, Mark Thatcher and others — and bring them to court then maybe we will transfer Simon to an English jail so he can be close to his family”.
He added that British police had visited Equatorial Guinea three times within a few months gathering evidence and Mann had ”collaborated brilliantly” with them.
”Simon Mann has collaborated with our government and the British police and if he continues to behave so well, then yes, we will reduce his sentence,” the president said.
Police in London confirmed visits to Equatorial Guinea, the paper said.
He also claimed that Calil had made ”overtures” to Equatorial Guinea in the past month with ”a view to reaching some kind of understanding”, adding: ”We are not sure yet exactly what he wants”.
In July, Calil, a British businessman of Lebanese descent, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that he had ”absolutely nothing” to do with the plot and nor did Thatcher.
He added that the plot detailed by Mann in his trial in Malabo was ”pure fantasy” concocted by the authorities for political purposes. – AFP
