Simon Mann, Mercenary and Ex-SAS Officer, Dies Aged 72
Simon Mann, the colourful mercenary and ex-SAS officer who was jailed for leading the so-called Wonga Coup involving Sir Mark Thatcher in central Africa 20 years ago, has died at the age of 72. According to a report by the Daily Mail, Mann was found dead in a gym while exercising.
Mann, an Old Etonian, had a distinguished military career before his entanglement in the coup. He served in the Scots Guards and SAS in Cyprus, Germany, Norway, and Northern Ireland, volunteering as a reservist in the first Gulf war in 1991. In 1996, Mann formed the mercenary or ‘Private Military Company’ Sandline with former Scots Guards Colonel Tim Spicer, operating in Angola and Sierra Leone.
In 2004, Mann hit the headlines when he and 69 other ex-soldiers were arrested during a stop-off at Harare Airport to be loaded with £100k of weapons and equipment intended to engineer the coup in Equatorial Guinea and overthrow the government of President Teodoro Obiang. The Daily Mail reports that Mann and the other conspirators claimed they were merely flying to the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide security for diamond mines.
However, after a trial in Harare, Mann was given seven years for attempting to buy arms for an alleged coup, while 66 other men were acquitted. Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was later arrested in South Africa and, like Mann, admitted a part in the coup attempt.
The coup was financed by Lebanese fixer Eli Calil, nicknamed ‘Smelly’ by his ex-public school co-conspirators, who later died falling downstairs at his home in Holland Park, West London. President Obiang promised that he would eat Mann’s testicles and drag his naked body through the streets, should he ever get the chance.
In 2006, a TV movie called Coup! was made about the affair, written by actor and comedy writer John Fortune. The Daily Mail reports that Mann’s polo-playing son Jack, by his first marriage, was previously named as Prince Harry’s ‘real best man’.
In 2007, a court in Zimbabwe ruled that Mann should be extradited to Equatorial Guinea after a shady agreement between the two governments branded the ‘Oil for Mann’ deal. The then Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe secured a large amount of oil from Guinea, widely believed to be in return for sending Mann north to meet his fate.
Mann was thrown into the notorious hell-hole of Black Beach Prison, where he was clapped in leg irons and would serve less than two years of a 34-year sentence. He suffered with malaria more than once, caged in a tiny cell in solitary confinement.
Back home, Mann’s loyal wife Amanda, fighting with others for her husband’s release, displayed unquenchable spirit, acquiring a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: ‘A man is for Christmas. Not for life.’ In 2009 he was granted a ‘complete pardon on humanitarian grounds’ by President Obiang, the man he had tried to depose, and settled in the New Forest with his wife Amanda.
However, last year the Daily Mail reported that Mann had left Amanda, mother of four of his seven children, who campaigned tirelessly for his release and was apparently being comforted by a woman more than 20 years his junior.
In a 2023 interview with the Daily Telegraph, Mann claimed that Thatcher’s role in the coup attempt was far more than just a ‘negligent financier’. The plot was seeded in August 2003, when Calil summoned Mann to his grand mansion in Chelsea, after being approached by Severo Moto, the exiled opposition leader in Equatorial Guinea, who wanted to overthrow the tyrannical Obiang.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Mann claimed Calil told him that King Juan Carlos of Spain, of which Equatorial Guinea is a former colony, and the then-prime minister of Spain José Maria Aznar, knew about the coup and approved of it. Mann needed a helicopter for the fast movement of supplies and troops and Sir Mark, a trained helicopter pilot, had the connections and the cash to source the required aircraft.
The Daily Mail also reported that Mann’s next scheme was growing cannabis in North Macedonia, after his release from prison. With a life marked by controversy and intrigue, Simon Mann’s legacy will be remembered for his involvement in one of the most audacious coup attempts of the 21st century.
