Feral Jundi

   This just keeps getting better and more juicy with every detail that comes out.  If a movie is not made about this whole deal, I would be very surprised.  You watch, Nick will have a book deal to counter Simon’s book. Simon’s book which will more than likely thrash Thatcher and company, will probably motivate Thatcher to write a book to tell his side of the story. It will be the battle of the books–a ‘written word bloodbath’!  Frederick Forsyth, eat your heart out. lol –Matt

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Dog of war Simon Mann paid £400k in wonga to buy his way out of jail, claims coup plotter

By Barbara Jones In Pretoria22nd November 2009

It was an extraordinary scene. British mercenary Simon Mann was deep in conversation with his chief prosecutor, the Attorney General of Equatorial Guinea, the man who had brought him to justice for plotting to overthrow the West African country’s government.

They sat close together, discussing large sums of money and poring over paperwork.

Then, like the celebrity prisoner he had become, Mann reached over and borrowed the Attorney-General’s mobile phone to call his home in England.

For the next 50 minutes, Mann berated his wife Amanda for failing to produce the funds he needed to buy his way out of prison.

What was holding up the bank transfer, he demanded to know. When would the money reach West Africa? Did she realise how urgent this was?

Looking on in astonishment were four of his fellow prisoners. Unlike him, they were shackled by chains on their wrists and feet and wore uniforms of grey and white stripes.

Also unlike him, they had no vast reserves of money to call up in order to buy freedom.

They had been summoned to one of their occasional meetings with the Attorney-General in a ground-floor room at Black Beach prison and had come face-to-face with Mann for the first time since they were all arrested in March 2004.

For Nick du Toit, Mann’s chief co-conspirator, it was a traumatic moment.

‘He seemed so relaxed, almost unaware of us,’ he said. ‘Then he wanted to shake my hand and was only slightly embarrassed that I was shuffling over to him in chains. He asked how I was and I said I was fine. It was unreal.’

Now back home in Pretoria, du Toit has given The Mail on Sunday the first authentic account of the moment of their release on November 3.

He also revealed details of the special treatment afforded to Mann during his time in Black Beach – which included hotel food and an exercise treadmill.

Mann, 57, was released after 14 months of his 34-year sentence, boasting to du Toit that it cost him nearly half-a-million pounds.

Two weeks ago, Mann flew home to his country estate in Hampshire in a private jet. He briefed a PR agent on his plans to write a book about his adventures and announced his intention to incriminate those he claimed were fellow plotters who failed to come to his rescue in jail.

It was five years since Mann had famously written a pleading letter to other plotters urging them to provide the ‘large splodge of wonga’ he required to get out of Chikurubi Prison in Harare where he was first held.

Today, questions remain as to where the ‘wonga’ for the bribes to secure his liberty and fund that private jet came from.

No book deal has yet emerged and there are rumours of him living on ‘silence money’ provided by coup plot backers who fear arrest and imprisonment.

Du Toit, a veteran of South Africa’s special forces, was also sentenced to 34 years and, like Mann, won a presidential pardon after intense diplomatic activity by his country’s government.

He had teamed up with Mann in 2003 and agreed to source the guns and ammunition they needed to fly into Equatorial Guinea and oust its government. Their aim was oil wealth, political power and lucrative jobs for life.

But their spectacular failure resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of 88 men and claims that former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s son Mark was among the colourful mix of ambitious rogues who had financed the plan, allegations he denies.

Mann had allegedly been drawn into the plot by controversial oil tycoon Ely Calil, a Lebanese national living in London – who denies involvement in the plot – and by his co-conspirator Severo Moto, leader of Equatorial Guinea’s opposition party in exile in Spain.

In September 2003 Mann asked du Toit – whom he knew through their work for a British-owned private security company operating in Angola and Sierra Leone – to meet Mark Thatcher in South Africa. Mann and du Toit had already discussed the need for helicopters during the planned attack .

Du Toit said: ‘We liked the idea of Russian Mi-8s and Mi-17s. I had access to some being sold off by the Zambian government. Simon told me that was Mark Thatcher’s department. He was going to fund the helicopters.

‘He set up a meeting for me and Thatcher at the Airport Sun Hotel near Johannesburg airport. I found him in the lounge. I had brought along a quote. We talked for a couple of hours. Simon had said it was best not to mention Equatorial Guinea.’

Within weeks, Thatcher was funding an Alouette helicopter purchased through Crause Steyl, a former military pilot who ran an air ambulance service. Thatcher’s defence to charges that he breached South Africa’s anti-mercenary laws by providing funds for the helicopter was that he thought he was contributing to an air ambulance.

Du Toit claimed: ‘There is no doubt in my mind that Thatcher was involved with the coup plot. The guy negotiated a plea-bargain with a fine and suspended sentence and effectively got off scot-free.’

Looking back at the coup attempt, du Toit says: ‘I know now that intelligence was zipping from Pretoria to Harare and on to Malabo [capital of Equatorial Guinea] and that we were always going to be stopped in our tracks.

‘I lost five stone in prison. Our food was terrible – low-grade rice with dirt and stones in it, fatty meat and everything swimming in palm oil.

‘We spent all day, every day, in chains. We never left our first-floor landing, the maximum risk area, so we never had fresh air.’

Du Toit’s hopes rose when in February 2008, Mann was transferred from Harare to Black Beach.

‘We thought it might make a difference that he was the one with the evidence, the documents, the paper trail that the government wanted in order to arrest the main financiers of the coup,’ he said. ‘We felt Simon would want to co-operate and that would help all of us.’

Mann did indeed co-operate fully but while he was well treated in return, conditions for du Toit and the others remained the same.

Even after he was sentenced, Mann’s special privileges continued for his remaining 14 months in Black Beach. He was getting high-profile visitors and, unlike du Toit, was not in chains.

Then, last month, the prisoners’ network informed du Toit that Mann was being allowed out. Du Toit said: ‘Simon was eating luxury food and exercising on his treadmill. He did nothing for me or my men, just looked after himself and paid bribes.

‘We never set eyes on him until the day of that meeting with Jose Olo Obono, the Attorney General, when we heard him discussing payments and then arguing with his wife on the phone,’ he said.

‘Simon told me himself that he was getting food brought in daily from a local hotel. We saw platters of food being delivered to his cell.’

Mann told du Toit in a quiet voice that he was getting money sent over from England to pay off government ministers. Du Toit said Mann told him: ‘I’m getting out of here. But it’s already cost me more than £400,000 and they still want more.’

Du Toit added: ‘I got the impression he had paid government ministers. He had got his people to transfer £150,000 to one of them and £250,000 to the other. Now, he was openly talking about it. There was no shame or secrecy.

‘Of course, I knew corruption was not even a dirty word in some parts of Africa. This was bribery, pure and simple.

‘We had sat there amazed while he conducted negotiations and I couldn’t believe the way he talked to his wife.

‘After a while, the Attorney General said we could call our wives too. I had had no contact with my wife for two years. Now I was talking to her on the phone, hearing her voice.

‘She said she had written every month for the past six years. I never got her letters. I had written to her too and she had never received a word from me. The Equatorial Guinea government must have been blocking our letters.

‘The six minutes I was allowed on the phone were among the most difficult of my life.’

Later, du Toit and his men were told that they too might be released – as a goodwill gesture to new South African president Jacob Zuma. Official forms were brought to their cells and they heard they were to be pardoned.

Du Toit said: ‘I looked out of my portal and heard Simon shouting over to us, waving madly and asking if we had heard the news. He shouted congratulations. We were all very tearful.’

All the men met up in the courtroom inside the prison. Du Toit said: ‘We pledged never to return to Equatorial Guinea, never to engage in plotting against the government, never to disrespect the president. It wasn’t hard.’

The same judge who had sentenced them announced they were free and they were taken out to the exercise yard. ‘Simon’s sister and brother arrived to drive him away. He was going to a hotel and then home in a private jet.

‘We shook hands. His last words to me were that he was going to get everyone, all of them. He said he had paperwork, proof, evidence that would get them locked up.’

There were heart-stopping moments for du Toit and his men as they were first taken to the airport for a flight to Paris, then Johannesburg, then heard the plans were cancelled.

‘It was chaos,’ du Toit said. ‘Our luggage was on board and we were about to get on the flight. We heard our government had other plans for us.’

Eventually, they went to a hotel in Malabo. Du Toit said: ‘For the first time in six years, we had breakfast, lunch and dinner and we watched television.’

At last, back in Johannesburg, police told them they would not be prosecuted there. Du Toit said: ‘It was around 2am when I was able to call my wife. She got straight out of bed and drove over to collect me. It was great to be home.’

Story here.