Accused British mercenary admits weapons bid

A former captain in the SAS, accused by Zimbabwe of leading 70 suspected mercenaries in a coup plot against Equatorial Guinea today admitted attempting to possess dangerous weapons and faces ten years in prison.

Father-of-six Simon Mann, the son of a former English cricket captain, appeared in a special court in Harare’s top security prison where he also entered a limited guilty plea to a second charge of purchasing weapons but said the the deal never went through.

Eton and Sandhurst-educated Mann, 51, who went from the Scots Guards to the SAS, has been accused of plotting a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.

State prosecutors said Mann, who has a home on the banks of the Beaulieu river in Hampshire, agreed to buy weaponry from the state-run Zimbabwe Defence Industries.

ZDI marketing manager Hope Mutize said Mann and Nick du Toit, a suspected mercenary held in Equatorial Guinea, approached him to buy weapons.

Mutize said du Toit indicated he wanted to supply some of the weapons to rebels fighting the Congolese government.

Defence lawyer Jonathan Samkange argued that Mann never actually took possession of the weapons.

“There had been no delivery. The purchasers had not even inspected the weapons. It is my respectful submission that in this case there was only a mere attempt. Indeed an attempt of a very low degree,” he said.

All 70 defendants are expected back in court tomorrow where more serious charges could be brought.

The head of their defence team has withdrawn from the case.

Veteran South African lawyer Francois Joubert, a specialist in security and terrorism cases, “is no longer a member of the defence team”, said fellow lawyer Alwyn Griebenow in Harare.

He refused to give a reason.

Sixty-seven of the suspects pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of breaking Zimbabwe’s immigration and aviation laws when their ageing Boeing 727 landed at Harare airport in March.

They were immediately convicted of the offences, which are punishable by up to two years in jail.

Prosecutors allege Equatorial Guinea’s Spanish-based rebel leader, Severo Moto, offered the group £1m (€1.5m) and oil rights to overthrow President Theodoro Obiang Nguema in the former Spanish colony.

The suspects, most of them former members of South Africa’s apartheid-era military forces, maintain they were headed to security jobs at mining operations in eastern Congo.

In April, Zimbabwe revised its extradition policy to include Equatorial Guinea, raising the possibility the suspects could be sent to the West African nation for trial with seven South Africans and Namibians arrested there.

If tried in Equatorial Guinea, described by human rights groups as one of the most repressive countries in the world, they could face execution.