Coup backers 'could try again'
2008-06-20 10:05
Malabo - Powerful international
businessmen who allegedly masterminded a failed 2004 coup plot
in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea could try again to seize power
there, a British mercenary said at his trial on Thursday.
Simon Mann, who faces a possible jail term of nearly 32
years for his part in the 2004 coup bid in the West African
state, said in defence testimony the group of plotters was
headed by London-based Lebanese-born millionaire, Eli Calil.
Mann, an Eton-educated former special forces officer, has
admitted in the trial in the Equatorial Guinea capital Malabo
which began on Tuesday that he was involved in the abortive
conspiracy to topple President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
But he denies he was one of the leaders who, he said,
included Calil and Mark Thatcher, the son of former British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Both Calil and Mark Thatcher
have denied knowing about the coup, and are not on trial.
"I was like the employee," Mann on Thursday told the court,
which also heard testimony from six Equatorial Guinea citizens
accused of participating in the plot. Mann has testified it was
supported by the governments of Spain and South Africa.
Spain's government denied the allegation on Wednesday.
"There is a group of people around Calil ... very powerful.
Although I don't know their identities I know they exist ... I'm
quite sure they are not going to give up," Mann said.
He added that Calil, who made his fortune in Nigeria's oil
sector and who Mann said was the coup's main financial backer,
was known among his fellow plotters as "the Cardinal".
The March 2004 coup plot was foiled when authorities in
Zimbabwe arrested Mann and 70 mercenaries at Harare airport en
route to Equatorial Guinea aboard a Boeing 727.
Public Prosecutor Jose Olo Obono has said Equatorial Guinea
will seek the extradition of Mark Thatcher and Calil.
The court, sitting in a marble-walled conference centre in
Malabo, guarded by heavily armed soldiers, has not specified
when it will give its verdict or pass sentence.
South African link
Under questioning from his defence lawyer, Mann elaborated
on what he said was the involvement of South Africa's
intelligence services in the 2004 plot, which aimed to replace
Obiang with exiled opposition leader Severo Moto.
Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa's
third largest oil producer, since 1979.
Mann said South African security and airline company Omega,
which employed Nick du Toit as its representative in Equatorial
Guinea, had close links with South Africa's intelligence. Du
Toit is serving a 34-year jail term in Equatorial Guinea after
being convicted of being part of the 2004 plot.
"Nick, Omega and (South African) National Intelligence were
working all together and towards the coup d'etat," Mann said.
Du Toit, who was alleged to have led an
advance group of mercenaries, was tried and sentenced in 2004
along with 10 other foreigners and two local men.
In testimony on Wednesday, Mann had said that an
intelligence contact, Nick Morgan, who liaised with South
Africa's intelligence services, had assured him that Pretoria
approved of the coup bid.
According to Mann, Morgan even asked him to provide Moto's
telephone number so that South African President Thabo Mbeki
could call Moto if the coup succeeded.
Mann told the court on Thursday Calil and Moto had believed
the coup would find popular support among Equatorial Guinea's
mostly poor 600 000 population, most of whom rights groups say receive little benefit from the country's oil wealth.
"If that were not the case, how would this plan be remotely
practical?" Mann asked.
South Africa has meanwhile rejected suggestions that it gave support for the failed coup.
This allegation was "as preposterous as it is laughable", the Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement on Thursday.