CEEAC (Guinea Ecuato., Camerún, Gabón, SantoTomé y Príncipe)

[Esteban]

Malas noticias para Simon Mann

30/01/2008 17:20 HARARE, Jan 30 (AFP)
British 'coup mastermind' loses EGuinea extradition appeal

Simon Mann, the alleged British mastermind of a foiled coup in Equatorial Guinea, on Wednesday lost an appeal to stop his extradition from Zimbabwe to the west African state, his lawyer said.

"The appeal has been dismissed," Mann's lawyer Jonathan Samkange told journalists after a judgment handed down in chambers by judge president Rita Makarau.

"We are now appealing to the Supreme Court. I will be filing a notice of appeal (to the supreme court) tomorrow morning."

The lawyers had earlier lost a bid to block the judgment, saying the judge who heard the appeal had an interest in the case and should have recused himself.

Samkange said Justice Bharat Patel who heard Mann's appeal was part of the prosecution team in the case before he was appointed to the bench.

"He drafted the charges while he was deputy attorney general and when he was appointed judge he heard the appeal," Samkange told journalists.

"Even if you asked someone in the street what they think they will tell you justice was not done. He (Patel) should have recused himself when the appeal was allocated to him for hearing.

Harare magistrate last May convicted Mann of planning to oust Equatorial Guinea's long-serving ruler Teodoro Obiang Nguema and ordered that he be extradited to Equatorial Guinea.

His lawyers appealed to the high court against Mann's conviction, arguing that he faced torture in the west African country and his extradition would be tantamount to a death sentence.

A former member of Britain's crack SAS troops, Mann was arrested with 61 others when their plane landed at Harare international airport in March 2004.

They were accused of stopping off to pick up weapons from Harare while on their way to Malabo to oust Nguema, who has ruled the central African state with an iron fist since 1979.

Mann said he and his co-accused were on their way to the Democratic Republic of Congo and needed the weapons for a security contract at a mine.

He was sentenced to seven years in jail, but the term was later reduced. Most of his co-accused were released from a Zimbabwean prison in 2005.

Mann has been held at Chikurubi on the outskirts of Harare on an immigration warrant since completing his sentence on arms' charges in May last year.

http://www.africasia.com/services/news/ ... i8gxk1.php

[Esteban]

Pues al parecer han extraditado a Simon Mann sin esperar a que su apelación se resolviese.

Zimbabwe deports Mann to E Guinea
Simon Mann at Zimbabwe prison
Mann was arrested in 2004 and again last year
Zimbabwe has extradited Briton Simon Mann, a leader of alleged mercenaries, to Equatorial Guinea to face coup plot charges, his lawyer says.

The ex-SAS officer was jailed in Zimbabwe on arms charges in 2004, and rearrested after his release last May.

On Wednesday the High Court turned down an appeal against his extradition - his lawyers argued he could face torture.

He was flown out of the country without his legal team's knowledge before they could lodge a final appeal, they said. There has been no official confirmation of the extradition from the Zimbabwean government.

Equatorial Guinea has a poor human rights record. Amnesty International says that a German national arrested in the country over the same alleged coup plot was tortured before he died in prison.

'Affidavits'

Mann's lawyer Jonathan Samkange said he had gone to visit him in prison on Friday morning, only to be told he was no longer there. Deporting a person at night is not only mischievous but unlawful

Jonathan Samkange

"They deported him at night, late Wednesday night," Mr Samkange said. "There are affidavits to that effect." He said he found out about Mann's departure only after he had filed a final appeal with the Supreme Court in Harare.

"The idea was that by the time we filed a notice of appeal he would have gone," Mr Samkange said. "This was designed to defeat the notice of our appeal."

"Deporting a person at night is not only mischievous but unlawful."

Mann, 55, a former British special forces officer, was detained in 2004 when his plane landed in Zimbabwe from South Africa.

He was accused of trying to fetch arms for a coup against Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and jailed. More than 60 men arrested with him - most of them South African citizens of Angolan origin - were released in 2005 after serving a year's sentence in Zimbabwe.

Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former UK Prime Minister now Baroness Thatcher, was fined and received a suspended sentence in South Africa for his involvement in the affair.

Another 23 people, mostly South Africans, were convicted in Equatorial Guinea itself. One South African, Nick du Toit, remains in prison in Equatorial Guinea, serving a 34-year sentence.

In 2005, Amnesty reported that those arrested in Equatorial Guinea faced starvation, as they had been given just a cup of rice a day. Officials in Equatorial Guinea denied those claims.

They have said Mann will get a fair trial and will not face the death penalty.

Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich former Spanish colony, has been ruled by President Obiang since he seized power from his uncle in a coup in 1979.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7221948.stm

Y ahora una noticia que a Loopster le va a encantar. El African Partnership ha llegado a Guinea Ecuatorial a bordo del USS Fort McHenry

Africa Partnership Station visits Equatorial Guinea
[View High Resolution Image]

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea � Africa Partnership Station (APS), aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43), was welcomed and escorted by an Equatorial Guinea Patrol Craft while pulling into port here, Jan. 31.

The visit marks the first by a U.S. Navy ship in more than 15 years. As part of the Navy's new cooperative maritime strategy, APS is a multi-national effort to bring the latest training and techniques to maritime professionals in West and Central Africa, to address common threats of illegal fishing, smuggling, and human trafficking. In addition to maritime training, APS will perform more than 20 humanitarian projects in the region. (Department of Defense photo by Navy Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class RJ Stratchko)

Release Date: Feb 01, 2008

Navy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brian Goyak
Africa Partnership Station Public Affairs

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea � Africa Partnership Station (APS), aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43), arrived here, Jan. 31. APS continues a multinational effort aimed at strengthening emerging partnerships in West and Central Africa in order to increase regional and maritime safety and security.

The visit by Ft. McHenry is the first by a U.S. Navy ship in more than 15 years. The primary reason for the port visit is to establish a dialogue between Equatorial Guinea and APS.

"I believe this visit will be a good experience for me," said Capt. Samuel Morales, of the Spanish Marine Corps. "I look forward to doing work that is not part of normal military operations and getting to know people from this part of the world."
APS includes Sailors from Africa, Europe and the United States who are working towards a common goal - partnership in maritime safety and security. APS brings an international team of expert trainers in a variety of military capacities.

"I am part of the crew of an Equatorial Guinea ship but this is my first experience on a large U.S. Navy ship," said Lt. Cmdr. Tiburciu Ngomo, of the Equatorial Guinea Navy. "I have learned a lot from my time onboard observing the many orders carried out by the crew."

Although the Navy has conducted training during routine deployments in West Africa, the focus of APS is new and different. "I am very proud to arrive in Equatorial Guinea onboard Fort McHenry as part of APS," said Ngomo. "The presence of the ship in Equatorial Guinea is a new opportunity to increase our maritime security. I hope that Equatorial Guinea continues to be included in the normal program of APS."

APS is one in a series of activities designed to build maritime safety and security in Africa in a comprehensive and collaborative manner, focusing first on the Gulf of Guinea. It responds to specific African requests for assistance, is aligned with broad international community and U.S. objectives, and is reflective of the mission of the U.S. Africa Command. It seeks to take partnerships into action in a concerted interagency and multinational effort to promote maritime governance around Africa. APS is inspired by the belief that effective maritime safety and security will contribute to development, economic prosperity, and security ashore.

http://www.eucom.mil/english/FullStory.asp?art=1551

[Esteban]

El presidente de Nigeria quiere una fuerza de vigilancia del Golfo, y así se lo ha pedido a Obiang. Con apoyo USA.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200802010603.html

[Loopster]

Eso encaja con lo que pusimos hace unos meses aquí sobre los acuerdos entre Nigeria y Guinea, sobre todo en cuanto a "inteligencia naval".

Aunque si Nigeria rechazó la modernización de su infraestructura de inteligencia por parte de la compañía militar privada MPRI, y Guinea está modernizando todas sus FAS a base de la misma empresa estadounidense... algún acuerdo habrá tenido que haber de por medio.

[Esteban]

Pues parece que Obiang compró a Mann a cambio de petróleo para Zimbawe. Hace unas semanas estuvieron reunidos Mugabe y Teodoro hablando del tema. Mann dijo que si fuera extraditado a Malabo, era "hombre muerto".

I will be a dead man', says Mann
The British mercenary yanked from his cell in Zim's Chikurubi prison and deported to Guinea, Peta Thornycroft reports.

February 02, 2008 Edition 2

Peta Thornycroft

Convicted mercenary Simon Mann was seized from his tiny cell at the maximum-security prison Chikurubi in Harare in the early hours of Thursday and rushed to an Air Force security base near Harare International Airport.

He was briefly detained there before being deported to Equatorial Guinea - the oil-rich country whose dictatorial leader he was accused of trying to overthrow in an aborted coup in March 2004.

President Robert Mugabe's government delivered him to the potential horrors of Black Beach prison in Equatorial Guinea's capital Malabo, while his lawyers were still appealing against his deportation.

Well-placed sources said that Obiang's government sent an aircraft to Harare to collect Mann hours after he lost an appeal against his deportation order in the Harare High court on Wednesday - and before his lawyers were able to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Mann's lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, yesterday accused the Zimbabwean authorities of illegally "abducting" Mann. Samkange then lost a legal bid to have Mann returned from Equatorial Guinea late yesterday.

High Court judge Alfas Chitakunye dismissed Samkange's application for Mann's extradition to be reversed and for him to be returned to Harare.

Mann has opposed the deportation order all along on the grounds that he would be tortured in Equatorial Guinea as other members of the coup plot allegedly have been.

"It is illegal. He has been abducted," said Jonathan Samkange, his lawyer.

"Deporting a person at night is not only mischievous but unlawful."

A new wing has been built at Black Beach jail and the regime says that conditions have improved since Amnesty International reported in 2005 that prisoners routinely starved to death. Nguema's regime has pledged to refrain from torturing or executing Mann.

But Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich dictatorship formerly ruled by Spain, has one of Africa's worst human rights records.

Mann, who served a four-year sentence in Zimbabwe for trying to buy weapons, made frantic efforts to avoid extradition. He once told his lawyer that if he was ever sent there, "I will be a dead man".

It is understood that Mann tried to resist being taken out of his Chikurubi cell around midnight on Wednesday.

Mann told the officials who had come to collect him that he had an appeal against his deportation pending at the Supreme Court. However the officials ignored his pleas and bundled Mann out of the prison under heavy security and took him to Manyame Air Force base.

He was on a plane to Equatorial Guinea by about 1am Thursday morning.

Mann's lawyers are insisting that he should be returned to Zimbabwe because he was deported in violation of the law.

This was because they had given notice that they would file an appeal against High Court judge Rita Makarau's ruling on Wednesday upholding an earlier decision to deport him.

"Once Mann's lawyers had noted their intention to appeal at the Supreme Court, his deportation should have been stopped pending a decision of the higher courts," said one lawyer, who did not want to be named. Mann's lawyers will go to the Supreme Court on Monday to try to persuade the country's highest court to have him returned.

But that appears to be a futile exercise as Zimbabwe's Supreme Court is stuffed by Mugabe's cronies. The deal to have Mann deported was apparently struck between Mugabe and EG President Teodoro Obiang Nguema when the two leaders visited each other in their respective capitals last year.

Some observers believe that Mugabe has in effect sold Mann for oil as Equatorial Guinea has been helping bankrupt Zimbabwe with the precious commodity.

Nguema is a African leader of the old school. In power since a coup in 1979, he has built an adulatory personality cult. State radio has declared Nguema a "god" who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell".

Some reports - unproven and unverifiable - suggest that Nguema might have been an occasional cannibal, in the mould of despots like Idi Amin in Uganda.

Equatorial Guinea is Africa's third biggest oil producer. Since the alleged plot was uncovered, Nguema has become an ally of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, supplying Harare's cash-strapped regime with fuel.

British-born Mann, a former member of the British special forces and a mercenary, was living in Cape Town in 2004 when he allegedly hatched a plot with others Britons and South Africans to topple Obiang in a coup and replace him with exiled opposition leader Severo Moto.

But SA intelligence sources apparently got wind of the plan and tipped off the Zimbabweans.

When a chartered aircraft full of hired mercenaries landed at Harare airport in March 2004 to collect a consignment of arms which Mann had ordered from the Zimbabwe arms parastatal, Mann and about 70 other men were arrested.

A little later, in Malabo, the South African ex-mercenary Nick du Toit and several other South African and foreign accomplices, were also arrested.

The Du Toit group was tried in Malabo and convicted of planning a coup to be launched when Mann and his men arrived on the island in their chartered aircraft loaded with weapons.

Du Toit was sentenced to 34 years in prison and the others were given lesser sentences. Most are still sitting in Black Beach prison where they claim to have been tortured.

http://www.thestar.co.za/?fArticleId=4235152

[Loopster]

No me creo que fuera la inteligencia sudafricana quien filtró la información a Zimbabwe, en todo caso fue la inteligencia china (extremadamente activa en África) la que pasó el chivatazo, obtenido a base de lo descuidados que fueron varios de los mercenarios en Sudáfrica... esas conversaciones entre Simon Mann y F.B. seguro que tuvieron a muchos camareros y "acompañantes femeninas" con los oídos atentos.

Si Mann entra en Blackbeach solo hay dos formas de que salga vivo, que Reino Unido lo compre o que sus antiguos compañeros (T.S., F.B., ...) lo saquen como sea.

[Esteban]

Parece que ya lo han paseado por la tv del régimen. Se agradecería algún snapshot.

British mercenary paraded on TV in Equatorial Guinea

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© AP
2008-02-07 20:23:13 -

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea (AP) - A British mercenary accused of attempting to stage a coup in this small African nation was paraded on national TV on Thursday, a week after he was handed over by the government of Zimbabwe.

Simon Mann, in handcuffs, was made to walk in front of the camera wearing a gray prison

jumpsuit during a TV broadcast in which a government spokesman announced he will be tried here for a 2004 coup plot.

The broadcast marked the government's first acknowledgment that the Mann, 54, had returned to Equatorial Guinea. He was secretly extradited from Zimbabwe one week ago without his lawyer's knowledge.

Mann, a British special forces agent, was arrested along with 70 others, mostly former soldiers, when their plane arrived in Zimbabwe to collect weapons bought from the Zimbabwe state arms maker. They were found with uniforms identical to those of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Ngeuma's presidential guard.

Equatorial Guinea alleges that Mann's friend Mark Thatcher, the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, commissioned the bid to overthrow Obiang's 29-year regime and install an opposition politician.

The country is Africa's No. 3 oil producer.

In the televised statement, government spokesman Santiago Efuman said Mann had been handed over to Equatorial Guinea Feb. 2 by Zimbabwe «so that he could be tried.

Efuman said the government «has proof showing Simon Mann was the hand guiding the actions of the mercenaries against Equatorial Guinea.
Mann has denied that he was preparing a coup, saying the planeload of soldiers were headed to Congo to guard a mining operation there.

Thatcher pleaded guilty in a South African court in 2005 to unwittingly helping to bankroll the botched coup. Mann received a four-year sentence on weapons charges and was incarcerated in Zimbabwe's harsh Chikurubi maximum security prison. He was released early for good behavior, but detained again last May, when a judge ordered his extradition to Equatorial Guinea.

Authorities in Zimbabwe had said Mann would be given seven days notice before being extradited, but instead he was spirited out of the Zimbabwe prison last Thursday at 1:20 a.m. and flown to Malabo. His lawyer only realized he was gone the next day when he arrived at the prison to see his client.

The televised image released by the government late Wednesday and repeated throughout the day Thursday, showed Mann at the country's notorious Black Beach prison, where the alleged coup plot leader, South African arms dealer Nick Du Toit, is being held. Du Toit was sentenced to 34 years in prison, though he has since said a confession he made that was key to the case against him is false.

Mann, with several days of stubble on his chin, was shown cuffed at the wrists and ankles. He was made to walk in front of the camera, while security forces walked behind with their machine guns pointed at him.

http://www.pr-inside.com/british-mercen ... 427428.htm

[Esteban]

Esto es de guineaecuatorial.net

SIMON MANN YA ESTÁ EN LA CÁRCEL DE BLACK BEACH.
(publicado por: MBO OBA)

Por fin, el dictador, después de haber realizado entregas importantes de partidas de crudo al Gobierno dictatorial y corrupto de Robert Mugabe, de Zimbabwe y tras efectuar pagas millonarias tanto a Mugabe, como a los responsables del expediente para la extradición de Simon Mann a Malabo, éste llegó , según nuestras fuentes en la cárcel de Black Beach, en la madrugada del viernes día 1 de febrero.

Simon Mann , antes de su traslado a Malabo, estuvo en un centro especial de la policía política de Zimbabwe y su traslado se ha realizado violando todas las normas sobre extradiciones y en el más absoluto hermetismo. Para la ocasión, el dictador destacó una delegación ” especial ” para el traslado del ” paquete ” y el transporte se efectuó en un avión de lujo de la flota de la familia del dictador, todo un detalle para el preso y peligroso mercenario.

El coste real para la extradición ilegal de Simon Mann, desde el proceso hasta las apelaciones y los intentos de interrogatorios en Harare, por parte del fiscal general, José Olo y del Ministero de Seguridad , Manuel Nguema Mba, ascienden a 1,2 millones de barriles de petróleo, que supuestamente pagará a precios especiales el Gobierno de Harare, cuando tenga el dinero (seguro que no lo tendrá) y 45 millones de dólares en sobornos, pagados al contacto ( 25 millones de doláres USA para Robert Mugabe, 20 millones de dólares para fiscales, jueces, magistrados, altos mandos de la policía y de la seguridad y los jerifaltes del Partido de Mugabe).

De momento la situación es de una tensa calma, Simon Mann es un preso incómodo y no se sabe cuál será la reacción de los poderosos y verdaderos autores intelectuales del fallido intento de invasión mercenaria, es decir, los que le pagarón y le facilitaron todos los medios e informaciones para planificar dicha fallida operación.

Con lo de 5 de diciembre, el régimen del caos debería estar escarmentado y darse perfecta cuenta de que no está ni a la altura ni en condiciones de enfrentarse a una situación bélica real. Con Simon Mann en Black Beach, y ante el temor de que cuente ” cosas ”, puede ocurrir cualquier cosa, en cualquier momento, pero esta vez, ya no por el dinero, sino para ” salvar ” al compañero SIMON MANN , que sabe mucho y demasiado y pondría en dificultades a más de un ” tiburón ” de los asuntos turbios internacionales, si tira de la manta y se va de la lengua y empieza a contar sus experiencias con los servicios secretos británicos, la CIA y el MOSSAD.

Siendo uno de los contactos más directos que hasta ahora no ha sido encausado ALI KHALIL, acaudalado libanés afincado en Londres, podría mover sus ” hermanos” árabes para dejar Malabo en escombros. El régimen del caos debería saber que hay cosas en este mundo que es mejor no saber ni remover. Pero en fin.............suerte con SIMON MANN.
Fuente: MBO OBA
Fecha: 06/02/2008 8:43:42
Autor: MBO OBA

[Esteban]

El Daily mail, a saco

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

Despair of the dog of war: The extraordinary story of old Etonian mercenary Simon Mann's 'prison transfer' to 'the Dachau of Africa'
By ANDREW MALONE - More by this author » Last updated at 12:24pm on 9th February 2008

When they finally came for him, Simon Mann was totally unprepared. At 1.30am, five hours before dawn, the former SAS officer and British soldier of fortune was asleep in his cell inside a notorious African prison. It was a hot, still night. Insects whirred, sick prisoners coughed and groaned.

With more than 3,000 inmates, Chikurubi maximum security prison in Zimbabwe is a place of disease, brutality and death. Mann, an old Etonian and the son of a former England cricket captain, had spent the past four years incarcerated there, enduring beatings, inedible food and plagued by illness and lice.

This week, after being secretly extradited from Zimbabwe to the fetid west African state of Equatorial Guinea, he must now wish he was back in Chikurubi, despite such awful conditions.

Mann had originally been jailed in Zimbabwe in 2004 for plotting with a team of mercenaries under his command to stage an armed coup in Equatorial Guinea, once dubbed the 'Dachau of the Continent' due to its state-sponsored brutality.

This week, after he was paraded in manacles on state television by his new Equatorial Guinea captors, Mann's wife, friends and British diplomats anxiously demanded guarantees that the 55-year-old would not be harmed.

Simon Mann's wife Amanda

However, that seems unlikely. The president of Equatorial Guinea has already vowed to sodomise his high-profile prisoner, before skinning him alive and parading his body through Malabo, the rat-infested capital of the former Spanish colony.

The extraordinary saga of Simon Mann has been shrouded in lies, secrecy and misinformation. Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, both international pariahs, refuse to provide details of this week's hand-over.

Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe, his country in ruins with inflation at 25,000 per cent and worthless bank notes fluttering through the streets, has banned all foreign journalists. But as Mann was about to be bundled out of Chikurubi last week, I clandestinely entered the country to discover the truth.

It is estimated that one in five of Zimbabwe's 13million population work for the Central Intelligence Organisation, a fearsome security network originally trained by the East German Stasi and interrogation specialists from North Korea.

After secretly interviewing prisoners, jail officials, lawyers and intelligence officials, I can tell the story of how Mann had hoped to carry off the biggest pay-day in the history of private warfare.

It is a tale of greed, treachery and betrayal. It is also laced with allegations that Western intelligence agents tacitly sanctioned Mann's audacious - and ultimately doomed - attempt to take control of Equatorial Guinea - a country with some of the world's biggest oil reserves.

After initially being arrested in Zimbabwe, Mann endured a dehumanising time in Chikurubi. For 18 hours a day, he was shackled in leg and wrist irons, which caused gangrenous sores. Although he had a chronic hernia problem, he was repeatedly refused medical treatment.

Suffering from a bad hip - the price of dodging bombs and bullets when he fought as a mercenary in wars throughout Africa and the world - he was in constant pain. His poor diet also caused problems with his teeth and eyes. He feared he was going blind.

But Mann had powerful friends. After being placed in a single cell with 40 other prisoners, where male rape was widespread and many of the inmates HIV positive, he was moved to another, less harsh, wing. There, he was allowed a cell - with no bed and a concrete floor - shared with only six other inmates.

Holton Mackenzie, a Zimbabwean serving an indeterminate sentence for 'crimes against the state', said the Englishman fitted in well: 'We all liked him. He was a good man.'

With huge bribes being passed to prison staff by unnamed Mann supporters, the mercenary worked on boosting his popularity by sharing magazines and other contraband smuggled in by prison officers.

Jonathan Samkange, his solicitor and close friend, ensured that special food parcels were smuggled in three times a week, containing beef, chicken, eggs and vegetables.

Although Mann's hip and hernia still caused him problems, these packages were lifesavers and his health improved.

As a result, he avoided having to eat prison food - a diet of filthy rice once a day or a small bowl of kapenza (a watery gruel supposedly flavoured with small dried fish). 'He would give us what he didn't want,' said Mackenzie.

After serving three years of his sentence, he was released on parole - to be re-arrested immediately after Equatorial Guinea launched the High Court action in Harare demanding his extradition.

Mann took the news badly. 'He knew he would die if he was extradited,' one Chikurubi inmate said. 'He said it made him sick to think about what would happen if he was taken to Equatorial Guinea.'

But his lawyer then tried to convince him that the Zimbabwe courts were relatively independent and it wasn't a foregone conclusion that he would be extradited.

Samkange said: 'He became quite optimistic and thought he would be saved.' Mann had even started planning for life after prison. Between trying to exercise, by limping up and down his tiny cell, he began to write a book on pieces of paper smuggled in by corrupt guards.

Mann believed his writings would make him a fortune, revealing his role in an audacious real-life coup attempt in the country that Frederick Forsyth visited before writing his best-selling thriller about mercenaries, The Dogs Of War.

However, his hopes of avoiding extradition to Equatorial Guinea proved an illusion. Hope is a foolish thing in Africa, a continent scarred by corruption, treachery and bloodshed in battles over vast reserves of oil, diamonds and gas. There was to be no 'fair play'.

With chronic shortages of petrol and electricity, Mugabe was offered a deal by Equatorial Guinea: oil in return for the English prisoner.

Cunningly, Mugabe said he would allow the courts to decide while, privately, he had decided Mann's fate. He regarded the Englishman, a former friend of Lady Thatcher's son, Mark, who had once joined the former Prime Minister for Christmas dinner, as a 'white devil'.

Ten days ago, at the High Court in Harare, a judge ruled against Mann's claims that it was unlawful to send him to a country where he would almost certainly be tortured and killed. His lawyer, Samkange, hadn't anticipated that a judge linked to Mugabe's Cabinet would preside over the hearing. 'I am horrified by what has happened,' he said.

Even so, Mann hoped an appeal would succeed. At the very least, it would buy him time. Elections in Zimbabwe are scheduled for next month. Amid rumours of rivals plotting against Mugabe, who has reduced the life expectancy of the average Zimbabwean by three decades since coming to power in 1980, there was also the slim prospect that he would be forced from power.

Black Beach, Equatorial Guinea:There are no human rights, no proper access for lawyers, no regular family visits and no medical supervision

Yet, it was not to be. Hours after the judgment against him, Mann was sleeping under a coarse prison blanket in Chikurubi when thugs from Zimbabwe's feared Law and Order Section burst into his cell. Groggy, but realising what was happening, Mann shouted for help.

Accounts of what occurred next differ. According to some inmates and prison officers, he struggled with the soldiers. He was shouting that he wanted his lawyer. He was also punched and 'roughed up'. After being overpowered, he was dragged outside and bundled into a white Nissan 4x4 vehicle with blacked-out windows.

His spectacles were lost in the struggle as he was wedged in the back of the Nissan, still in shackles.

Escorted by three other vehicles full of armed thugs, he was taken to the Manyame air force base, just south of Harare. A jet was waiting to fly Mann through the night to Equatorial Guinea.

But, in extraordinary scenes on the airstrip, sources claim Zimbabwean forces started arguing over what to do with Mann. According to some, a fight broke out between officers charged with handing him over.

Aware of the money they could make out of this prize prisoner, some wanted to fly him to a different country, where he could be held hostage until his friends in Britain could pay them a lucrative ransom for his release. There was a struggle between the rival factions. Shots rang out. According to one eye-witness account, Mann was slightly injured.

What is not in dispute is that it took more than four hours to get Mann on to the waiting aircraft, which was operating illegally and had not registered a flight plan. The aircraft did not take off until after 5am.

Friends claim that Mann was 'sold out' by Western intelligence agencies anxious to distance themselves from a plot which they had been involved in to seize control of vast oil reserves in Equatorial Guinea.

Adam Roberts, the former Africa correspondent of The Economist and author of The Wonga Coup, a book about the affair, said: 'Western governments - including Spain, Britain and the United States - knew that mercenaries were cooking up a plan to carry out a coup in Equatorial Guinea.

'The plotters believed not only that they had permission to go ahead with the coup, but that Spain would provide military assistance once it had succeeded.

"Britain and America would have gone along with regime change in Equatorial Guinea quite happily, as long as oil supplies were assured. But this was not the case and the support never materialised."

Such arguments are academic to Mann now, who must bitterly regret his decision to put together a party of 70 mercenaries, intent on overthrowing Equatorial Guinea's dictatorial president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

The coup was to have set him up for life. He had arrived in South Africa in 1997 and persuaded Mark Thatcher, a Cape Town neighbour, to invest £75,000 in the operation, using the codename 'Scratcher'. (Thatcher claimed later he did not know a coup was planned.)

The plan was to pick up weapons in Zimbabwe and then fly to Equatorial Guinea, meeting with a small advance party already there. A separate aircraft would fly in Severo Moto Nsa, an exiled opposition politician, who would take over the government and give Mann a slice of all oil profits as well as a diplomatic passport.

But agents from the South African government had infiltrated the operation and Mugabe was tipped off about the stop-over in Zimbabwe. Mann and the other mercenaries were arrested.



A cell at Equatorial Guinea's notorious Black Beach prison

Today, as he faces treason charges for his failed coup, some believe Equatorial Guinea's President Obiang, despite his blood-thirsty threats, may spare Mann - if he reveals who was really behind the plot. The president's lawyers this week launched a civil case for damages in London, trying to flush out the truth about Mann's alleged prominent backers.

Meanwhile, Mann must hope that somewhere, whether in Britain, France or South Africa, a group of his mercenary friends are plotting an audacious raid on Black Beach prison. For hope is all that Simon Mann may now have left.

[Loopster]

Muy limpia está esa celda para ser de Black Beach...


Simon Mann está condenado a muerte, si habla (que le intentarán hacer hablar) le matarán nada más grabar en video una confesión contra España y Reino Unido que obligue a ambos países a soltar dinero para no tener un buen follón. Si no habla le matarán y santas pascuas.

Comprarle va a ser difícil, a menos que se metieran de por medio los libaneses de Malabo, y sobre una operación de rescate... ya se ha visto que no es tan difícil dominar Guinea Ecuatorial durante 6 horas con un puñado de hombres, pero Black Beach es una cárcel junto a la residencia de los guardaespaldas de Obiang, no un paseo marítimo y calles abiertas, además de que los guardias de Black Beach tendrán órden de matar a Mann a la más mínima señal de alarma.