The men convicted of plotting to overthrow the government of Teodoro Obiang Nguema in 2004, have been given a presidential pardon and released from the notorious Black Beach Prison in Malabo, Equitorial Guinea.
Leader Simon Mann, whose role in the plot is examined in The Wonga Coup by Adam Roberts held the company of four South Africans: Nick du Toit, Sergio Cardoso, Jose Sundays and George Alerson.
Du Toit has alleged that torture in the prison was rife:
He told Rapport they were tortured in prison with electric shock devices and burning cigarettes. One coup plotter died of a heart attack while being tortured, he said.Under the headline “My prison hell” the newspaper reported that the scars were still visible where handcuffs had cut Du Toit’s wrists to the bone, then rusted in place. He had lost 37kg in prison.
The “Wonga Coup” was “not the right way to go about things”, Nick du Toit, the point-man of the plot to overthrow Equatorial Guinea dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema says.
“These things should be sorted out in a political manner,” Du Toit told Rapport.
So Simon Mann, international man of mystery, the very model of a modern day mercenary, is free. Sentenced last year, after a show trial, to 34 years in jail (plus a few million dollars in fines) to be served in the notorious Black Beach prison in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, he should be back in London within a day or two.
His crime – to which he confessed in great detail, though under harsh conditions (he reasonably feared that he might be tortured) – was to plot the overthrow of the government of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in 2004. Having recruited dozens of hired guns, veterans from wars in Angola, Iraq and elsewhere, he arranged for his teams to fly at night to Equatorial Guinea, in early March 2004, to carry out a daring putsch worthy of an airport thriller. He was foiled en route, however, in Harare, Zimbabwe, when Robert Mugabe’s officials – who had been in the process of selling weapons to the mercenaries – instead arrested the plotters at the airport.
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Images courtesy the Daily Mail and BBC News
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