CNN.com March 06, 2008
Wife: Mann faces torture and execution
By Alphonso Van Marsh
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The wife of a British mercenary accused of plotting to overthrow the president of Equatorial Guinea has asked the west African country to let him go.
Simon Mann is a former Army commando who once mingled with the British elite at an exclusive prep school. Now he faces possible torture and execution, his wife says, in the tiny country on Africa's Atlantic coast.
Mann was arrested in 2004 after a plane carrying him and about 60 mercenaries landed in Zimbabwe, having been accused of planning a coup against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
He spent four years in prison in Zimbabwe before being extradited to face more charges in Equatorial Guinea, a country of just 551,000 people.
"He's had nobody from family or friends to visit him," said his wife, Amanda Mann. She said President Obiang "could show clemency and come to the world stage and send Simon home."
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Mann's publicist and lawyers are worried that her husband will not get a fair trial in a country that has faced sharp international criticism for human rights abuses during the 29-year rule of Obiang.
The country is the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa and a provider to the United States and Europe.
Lawyers representing Equatorial Guinea said that Mann's family was trying to excite public opinion and that their claims were exaggerated. It would not pursue the death penalty, they said, and a judge from another country could preside over the trial to ensure impartiality.
After Mann's arrest in Zimbabwe, the government of Equatorial Guinea said he and the soldiers were on their way to overthrow Obiang.
But Mann said the soldiers were on their way to guard a diamond mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A Zimbabwe court convicted Mann of illegally trying to buy weapons, for which he served four years in jail.
Also arrested as part of the plot was Mark Thatcher, the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher pleaded guilty in a South African court in 2005 to unwittingly bankrolling the plot, saying he had given $275,000 towards the charter of the helicopter. He said he thought it was for commercial purposes and only later began to suspect it was to be used by mercenaries.
Shortly before Mann's release from the Zimbabwe prison, a judge ordered his extradition to Equatorial Guinea to face charges of leading an abortive coup.
Amanda Mann said her husband was denied a right to appeal his extradition. She claimed he was abducted illegally last month -- "taken in the middle of the night" -- to the country's capital, Malabo, where authorities plan to try him.
"He was held at gunpoint for two days, beaten up," Amanda Mann said. "How can a trial start soon when he's in the country illegally?"
A diplomat from Equatorial Guinea and lawyers representing the country said Mann's extradition was by-the-book.
Mann was born into privilege, the son of an England cricket captain and the heir to a brewing fortune, the BBC reported. He was educated at the exclusive private school, Eton, that is favored by British political elite.
He served in the army, and later, was affiliated with South Africa-based mercenary firm Executive Outcomes.
The firm described itself on its now-defunct Web site as a "highly professional and confidential military advisory service to legitimate governments." It added that it played a "crucial" role in ending "two long-standing civil wars on the African continent."
According to GlobalSecurity.org -- a public policy Web site dealing with defense matters -- Sierra Leone hired Executive Outcomes in 1995. And within one month, government forces regained control of the district that produces two-thirds of the country's diamonds.
In Angola, oil and diamond-producing regions were the first areas secured by government forces trained by Executive Outcomes, according to GlobalSecurity.org.
Mann's wife says she did not know about her husband's work life.
"I wouldn't say he's a mercenary. I would say he's a private soldier," she said.
"He always provided the love and support any woman could want. Why would I question where, what -- one doesn't question what one's husband is doing 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
Equatorial Guinea is a former Spanish colony that has been ruled by Obiang since he seized power in a coup in 1979. The country has seen massive investment flow in with the discovery of oil some years ago.
Obiang said at the time of the coup attempt that foreign powers and multinational organizations were involved in a plot to overthrow him.
© Copyright 2008, Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
