Mar
9
Dog of war barks names of alleged conspirators
March 9, 2008 | | 1 Comment
By Penny (5)
Just when the British establishment thought they might have heard the last whimper from imprisoned Dog of War Simon Mann, he has given an interview about his failed coup attempt. He names British political figures who he alleges, gave their tacit approval to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, an oil rich African state.
Mann and his band of mercenaries were arrested at Harare Airport in March 2004 before they could fly to Equatorial Guinea. Mann spent three years in a Zimbabwean jail before being released for good behaviour. His wife Amanda said he was then “kidnapped” and sent to the notorious Black Beach prison in Equatorial Guinea in a “Mann-for-oil” deal between Equatorial President Obiang and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Amanda Mann has been campaigning for her husband’s release, even creating a website to raise awareness of her husband’s plight. However, on learning that an interview with her husband was to be broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4, she instructed her lawyer to apply for an injunction. She succeeded but many wondered what her motives were in preventing the interview from being made public. On Friday 7 March, Channel 4 overturned the injunction and the interview can now be broadcast. But the battle may not be over as Ely Calil, a Lebanese financier and oil trader with a £100 million fortune, named by Mann as being one of the men who funded the coup, is thought to be seeking his own injunction to stop the interview being aired.
Photographs of Mann taken during the interview show Mann to be in good health and the jail looks clean and hygienic in contrast to its international reputation for squalid conditions. Meanwhile Equatorial Guinea officials have said that Mann, who is charged with plotting to overthrow the government, will be given a “free, fair and transparent” trial.
As well as making news in Great Britain and Zimbabwe, Mann’s name is appearing in mainstream American media. In her commentary piece for the Chicago Tribune, Kathleen Parker brings Mann’s plight to the attention of her readers with an article headlined Mann overboard at Black Beach. She says Americans should care about Mann’s imprisonment because Equatorial Guinea is a provider of oil to the United States through companies that include Marathon Oil, Amerada Hess and Chevron.
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I guess the Daily Mail was wrong about the terrible fate that they predicted was going to befall him in Equatorial Guinea.