On October 9, Jose Olo Obongo, attorney general of Equatorial Guinea, announced to file an extradition request with the Lebanese authorities for three businessmen who we shall call EC, KF, and HM. The trio, all wealthy Lebanese, are suspected to be part of what is rapidly unravelling into an international scandal, stretching across continents and involving some of the world’s most high-profile personalities.
To insiders, it has become known as the “time share coup,” linking over a dozen multi-millionaires from Lebanon, South Africa and Britain, who have allegedly chipped in to finance a group of mercenaries led by a British ex-SAS officer Simon Mann to topple Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea, the oil rich nation that has become known as the “Kuwait of Africa.”
The plot could have been lifted from the pages of The Dogs of War, replete as it is with secret agents, front companies, mercenaries, and shadowy links to the intelligence services and political elite of Great Britain, the United States, as well as Spain, which it is alleged, had planned to land a force of 500 marines in Equatorial Guinea as soon as the shooting started.
But on March 7, a Boeing 727 carrying 67 South African mercenaries landed in Zimbabwe at Harare International Airport. They were to meet with Mann to buy weapons from the Zimbabwean Defense Industries. The shopping list was extensive: 61 AK47 assault rifles, with 75,000 rounds of ammunition, 20 light machine guns, RPG launchers and 150 hand grenades.
Unfortunately, the Zimbabwean army was waiting. The next day in Equatorial Guinea Nick du Toit, a South African mercenary turned arms dealer and 15 ‘associates’ were also arrested. The two governments had been tipped off by the South African intelligence services that the two gangs were part of the same private army. For his part, South Africa’s intelligence minister, Ronnie Kasrils, praised his security services, which he claimed had infiltrated his country’s swollen ranks of guns for hire.
After his arrest, Mann, speaking through his lawyers, maintained that he and his men were on their way to guard a mine in Congo, even producing a contract to back up their claim, despite the fact that he and his men were carrying an awful lot of hardware to just guard a mine.
Rather more embarrassing was Du Toit’s admission on March 25 that Mann’s story was “a smokescreen” and that he, Du Toit, was in fact leading an advance party for Mann’s main group. While hardly a unique military master plan, this was a similar modus operandi to that used by Executive Outcomes, the mercenary outfit that operated in Angola and Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s and which employed both Mann and Du Toit.
Then there was the issue of who was financing the whole operation. This is where the story is elevated from a botched coup attempt into an international scandal; and this where the three Lebanese come in. In his confession, Du Toit mentions EC, a wealthy and high profile London-based Lebanese businessman, along with several British millionaires as the financial backers of the coup. Mann backed the claim. “EC had done his homework and knew I had worked with Tony Buckingham,” wrote Mann in his confession, while he maintains it was EC who introduced him to Severo Moto, Equatorial Guinea’s opposition leader living in exile in Spain.
“I met Moto in Madrid,” Mann also wrote. “He was a good and honest man. He once studied to be a priest, but had stopped to better take care of his people. They asked me if I could accompany Moto home, the moment a military and popular uprising would take place. I agreed in an attempt to help the good cause.”
According to the authorities of Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe, Moto had offered Mann $1.8 million and a considerable oil concession. They also accused the Spanish government of being involved, citing as evidence, the presence of two Spanish naval vessels off the coast of Equatorial Guinea on March 8. Spain has, of course, denied the allegations.
Du Toit and Mann later withdrew the confessions, arguing that they were made under torture. In a letter smuggled out of prison to his wife but later intercepted by Zimbabwean authorities, Mann urgently pleaded for help. Again EC is mentioned.
Mann writes that he met him in January 2003 and goes on to say: “Our situation is not good and very urgent. What will get us out is MAJOR CLOUT. We need heavy influence of the sort that Smelly, Scratcher and David Hart can provide,” adding: “our lawyers get no reply from Smelly and Scratcher, who [were] asked to ring them back after the Grand Prix was over. This is not going well. It may be that getting us out comes down to a large splodge of wonga! Of course investors did not expect this to happen. Did I?”
“Smelly” is EC, while “Scratcher” is none other than Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It is not the first time his name has cropped up in this shadowy world. For years the British press has wondered how a private school dropout, amassed an estimated $90 million fortune.
It is thought that, apart from marrying an American millionaire’s daughter, “the boy Mark” received ‘payments’ of up to $12 million in the $20 billion Al Yamami arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia. In 1989, the British National Audit Office (NAO) conducted an official investigation into Thatcher’s finances, the details of which remain a state secret. It is the only inquiry in the NAO’s 100-year history that remains off limits to the public.
Mark Thatcher also happens to be Mann’s neighbor in, Capetown’s affluent Constantia neighborhood. When he was arrested in his pyjamas in XXXX, his suitcases were packed and his $3.5 million house put on the market. His wife and children had already left for Texas. Understandably, Thatcher’s lawyers maintain their client had nothing to do with the coup. They claim the $200,000 Mann was owed by Thatcher was for a mining operation in Sudan.
But Mann’s letter is not the only reference to EC and Thatcher.
This summer, Simon Mann’s accountant, 24-year-old James Kershaw, turned himself in to South African police. He had had in his possession the so-called “Wonga (money) List,” which names all those who invested in the coup, including EC and Mark Thatcher. Kershaw has since entered a special witness protection program.
And Thatcher’s is not the only name drawn from the upper-echelons of British politics. So too is millionaire David Hart, the man who, as part of Margaret Thatcher’s government, broke the power of Britain’s miners in the mid-80s. Another on the list is disgraced Conservative peer and bestselling author Jeffrey Archer, who recently spent 2.5 years in prison after being convicted of perjury. Archer, also a friend of EC, initially claimed to have had no contact with Mann. However, when it was proven he transferred some $135,000 to one of Mann’s many offshore accounts, he claimed he didn’t know the money was meant for a coup.
Back in Zimbabwe, Mann has been sentenced to seven years imprisonment, while his men face up to 12 months in jail. Nick du Toit awaits trial in Equatorial Guinea. The country is also actively seeks the extradition of Mark Thatcher and his fellow investors. Their chances of success are slim, especially as much of the evidence was obtained under torture. Equatorial Guinea also has a poor human rights record and still carries the death penalty.
Meanwhile the battle to extradite EC, KF and HM goes on. Last month, Jose Olo Obongo presented his case for extradition, accompanied by his lawyers, Henri Page from the British law firm Penningtons and his Lebanese counterpart Michel Tueni. According to Page, the request is based first of all on the confessions made by Mann and Du Toit. “I prefer to call them statements,” he said, “for they are much more than just an I-did-it confession.”
Next to the statements, Page pointed to the letter written by Simon Mann to his wife, the famous “wonga list” and especially to the contract signed between a company owned by KF and HK, Asian Trading and Investment Group SAL, and Mann’s Logo Logistics. The $5 million contract details a “mining, fishing, aviation and commercial security projects in a country in West Africa.”
“Finally,” he said, “we have further evidence that cannot be disclosed at this stage yet.” Page has also taken legal action against several banks in the Channel Island tax haven of Guernsey in an attempt to force them to open Mann’s accounts, which will not be an easy nut to crack.
The case continues.
(BOX)
KF is a 30-something Lebanese businessman, who runs an oil and gas servicing company in the Middle East and Sudan. Speaking exclusively to EXECUTIVE, KF admitted that EC and HM are both friends and business associates. He also admitted to being a good friend of Severo Moto, the Equatorial Guinean opposition leader who lives in exile in Spain, the country’s former colonial ruler.
“I love that man,” KF said. “He is a man with a vision. He is well respected in Spain and the USA, the main powerbrokers in Equatorial Guinea, and I believe sooner or later he will become president.”
KF went on to say that he met Simon Mann and went into business with him. He denies, however, that he knew anything about a coup. “The proof they have,” KF said, “is first of all the confession of Simon Mann and Nick du Toit, but both were obtained under torture and have been since been retracted. They are worth nothing, while the letter to his wife is not admissible in court.”
“Thirdly,” he said, “our contract with Mann’s Logo Logistics is registered and completely legitimate, and it had nothing to do with a coup.”
According to KF there is something fishy about the whole case. “EC did introduce Mann to Moto,” he said, “but it was Mann who first contacted EC.” Mann was asked by a powerful Russian diamond dealer to make a risk assessment of Equatorial Guinea with an eye on mining opportunities. That’s why Mann not only met Moto, but many Guineans. So far, no one has examined that road.”
“Another strange thing,” he added, “is the fact that Nick du Toit founded a company called Triple Options with the brother of several Obiang family members. The company dealt with fishing, air transportation, as well as training the presidential guard. Why would he risk all that in a coup?”
According to Page, however, “it is clear that Du Toit’s Triple Option was but a front company, and you need local partners in Equatorial Guinea to set up a company.”
KF concluded by saying that: “If the whole thing was a coup attempt, it’s clear that the money we invested was used for quite different purposes. And if it was a coup attempt, it’s unfortunate it failed, as Obiang is a ruthless dictator, who is even accused of having eaten his opponents’ testicles.”
It might be more than coincidence, KF maintained, that Du Toit’s lawyer was found dead on October 11, the niece of Severo Moto was found dead a few days earlier and the head of the Red Cross, Elias Marco, who made remarks about the prison system, was killed in a mysterious hit and run accident in September.”
(Box ) Lebanon’s millionaire man of mystery
Born in Nigeria, EC, who is accused of having put $750,000 into the coup, is a very wealthy and influential business tycoon of Lebanese descent. He is worth an estimated $250 million, supposedly from oil trading. He owns villas in Nigeria and Switzerland, as well as a $25 million mansion in Chelsea, London. Not much is known about EC, now in his late 50s. He was, until very recently, known as “the kingmaker of Nigeria” with business interests all over Africa, including Chad, Libya, Sudan and Senegal.
He is very discrete, yet well connected and counts friends Syrian millionaire Wafic Said, Mark Thatcher and Lord Jeffrey Archer, the latter two being implicated in the Equatorial Guinea coup plot. He married three times, once to Hayat Mroue, now Lady Palumbo. One of his daughters is a photo artist, while a son is a minor actor in Holby City, a UK hospital drama. He also starred in Steven Spielberg’s Band of Brothers. (In June 2003, he was involved in a minor scandal when his girlfriend, a fellow actor in Holby City fell to her death in suspicious circumstances from his Chelsea apartment.
EC categorically denies his involvement in the coup
(Box) Gentleman soldier Simon Mann
Simon Mann is the son of George Mann, a former English cricket captain and heir to the Watney Mann brewery. Mann first studied among the sons of princes and politicians at Eton and went on to Sandhurst to embark on a military career. He eventually joined the elite Special Air Services (SAS) and served in Cyprus, Northern Ireland and Central America. In 1981, he left the army to set up his own security company, specializing in computers and bodyguards. In 1989 however, he was asked to return to the British army to be the right hand man of General Peter de la Billiere, the commander of the British forces in the Gulf War and himself a former SAS officer, who in the 1960s fought Britain’s secret war in Yemen.
In the early 1990s, Mann met with Anthony Buckingham, a former marine and owner of a string of oil and diamond companies, in which he made a fortune in Africa. In 1993, Mann, Buckingham and Luther Eben Barlow, a former commander of the elite South African Buffalo 32 battalion, registered the company Executive Outcomes (EO) on the Isle of Man.
EO offered everything from military training and security to actual warfare. In 1993 it signed a contract with the Angolan government to clear the country from rebels. Value: some $40 million and an oil concession. In 1996, it signed a contract with the government of Sierra Leone to do the same. Value: some $36 million and a diamond concession. In both operations, Nick du Toit served as commanding officer.
After South Africa introduced a ban on mercenary activities, EO officially ceased to exist, yet it continued its activities under other names, such as Sandline International and Lifeguard. Mann, with Tim Spicer, returned to Sierra Leone in 1998 and Papua New Guinea in 1999. EO, or remnants of the company, still has interests in several African countries, among which are Angola, Sudan and Uganda.
Until he was arrested in Zimbabwe, the former British special forces officer led a millionaire lifestyle, owning the former Rothshild estate in Hampshire, a multimillion dollar villa in Capetown and flew the world in his private jet. In early September, he was sentenced to seven and a half years imprisonment for possession of illegal weapons and spends his days in the notorious Chikurubi prison in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare.
(BOX) President Teodoro Nguema Obiang and family
Born in 1942, Teodoro Nguema Obiang came to power through a coup d’etat in 1979 that toppled his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema, Equatorial Guinea’s first post-independence president. Nguema was one of Africa’s most notorious dictators, who banned anything that remotely reminded him of ex-colonial masters Spain and the Catholic Church. By the end of his reign, one third of the population was either dead or in exile.
The current president has a slightly better reputation. He started his reign robustly by executing his uncle and releasing some 5,000 political prisoners, but today heads one of the world’s most repressive regimes. According to organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, there are no free elections, no freedom of speech, while torture is common practice.
But what else can one expect in a country where last year state radio declared that the President is “a God who is in permanent contact with the Almighty and can kill anyone without being called into account.”
With an eye on the country’s abominable human rights record and a death threat sent to its US ambassador, the USA closed its embassy in 1995. Under the reign of George Bush however, the embassy was reopened following intensive lobbying by US oil firms such as Exxon, Chevron, Marathon and Amerada, which profit from Africa’s third largest offshore oil reserves, found in the mid-90s in the bay of Equatorial Guinea. So far however, the population has not benefited from the black gold. According to the IMF some 75% of the income goes directly in the pocket of President Obiang and his family.
An official investigation led by US Senator Carl Levin has found that the US oil firms mentioned above directly transferred funds into Obiang’s accounts at Washington’s Riggs Bank, reaching estimated $700 million. The accounts have been frozen, while the prestigious Riggs “diplomats” Bank has been fined $25 million. Meanwhile, America’s financial supervising body, SEC, has started an official investigation into the behavior of US oil firms operating in Equatorial Guinea. Though on paper, one of the richest countries in the world, Equatorial Guinea and its 500,000 inhabitants remain among the very poorest.
Finally, mid-October President Obiang arrested his brother Armengol, head of security, and 27 of his followers, accusing them of attempting to stage a coup against him. According to opposition figures in Spain, the cash-stripped Obiang had asked his brother to give up part of the $450 million he has stashed away in Egypt, but Armengol allegedly refused.