Equatorial Guinea frees mercenaries behind coup plot

MALABO (AFP) – Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday pardoned and freed British mercenary Simon Mann, South African Nick du Toit and three others who were jailed for a foiled coup plot in the West African nation in 2004.

"The amnesty is total. They are free," said Communications Minister Jeronimo Osa Osa Ekoro. "They have already left prison and they have 24 hours to leave Guinea for the destination of their choice."

The small, oil-rich country's national radio earlier said Mann, Du Toit and three other South Africans, Sergio Cardoso, Jose Sundays and George Alerson, had been granted amnesties by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled over Equatorial Guinea since 1979.

The British and South African mercenary leaders were jailed for 34 years each for their role in a plot to oust Obiang Nguema as head of the former Spanish colony in the Gulf of Guinea.

"We understand this was a personal decision by the president of Equatorial Guinea on humanitarian grounds," said a British Foreign Office spokeswoman in London.

South Africa, in a statement acknowledging the "humanitarian gesture", said its four citizens were handed to its embassy in Malabo and would be repatriated Tuesday. Their release came as President Jacob Zuma was to begin a previously scheduled visit to Equatorial Guinea.

Mann, 57, was in a hospital near the airport and his family arrived to pick him up on a Falcon plane that was still on the tarmac late Tuesday, an airport source said.

The former British Special Air Service officer underwent hernia surgery last year and his state of health was one of the reasons for the amnesty, national radio said, announcing a November 2 decree.

The government announcement said Mann needed "regular medical treatment near his family" and that he had shown "credible signs of repentance and the desire to be reinserted in society".

Mann's family said in a statement it was "absolutely delighted that Simon has been pardoned and is to be released shortly".

"Everyone is profoundly grateful to the president and the government of Equatorial Guinea. The whole family is overjoyed at the prospect of finally welcoming Simon home after five-and-a-half long years away," it added.

Mann was arrested in March 2004 along with 61 other people when their plane landed in Zimbabwe. He spent four years in a Zimbabwe prison on firearms charges before being deported to Equatorial Guinea.

At his trial there, Mann implicated Mark Thatcher, son of Britain's former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, in the plot to oust Equatorial Guinea's leader, who has run the country since a 1979 coup that ousted his uncle. The plot aimed to bring exiled opposition leader Severo Moto to power.

Mann, who attended Britain's prestigious Eton school and Sandhurst military academy, was said to be the brains behind the coup attempt. He told his trial last year that Spain and South Africa had backed the plot.

Mann and Du Toit had set up Executive Outcomes, which operated from Pretoria and helped the Angolan government protect its oil installations from rebels during that country's long civil war.

Mann, who lived in the Cape Town suburb of Constantia -- also home to Earl Spencer, brother of the late Princess Diana, and until recently Mark Thatcher -- allegedly used the 'old boy' network to finance his deals.

Thatcher pleaded guilty in a South African court to financing the planned coup and was given a four-year suspended prison sentence.

Thatcher, 56, issued a one-sentence statement after Mann's release saying he was "delighted" that he would soon be reunited with his family.

The mercenaries' release came as Equatorial Guinea opens its presidential election campaign on Thursday. The vote is set for November 29 and Obiang Nguema is seeking another mandate.

The largely impoverished country is Africa's third biggest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola following the discovery of large offshore oil deposits in the early 1990s.

Obiang Nguema in 1987 created the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), which dominates the political apparatus and leads a coalition of nine parties among the 13 that are legally recognised.

Since multiparty politics were introduced in 1991, the PDGE has easily won all elections.