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05/16/2004:

"British businessman accused of leading role in failed coup"

By Paul Lashmar and Adrian Gatton
16 May 2004, 1ndependent.co.uk

A management consultant from west London has been accused of being one of the masterminds behind a plot to overthrow the government of the oil-rich African state of Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea is a recently oil-rich but still impoverished country in west Africa whose President, Teodore Obiang, has ruled for 30 years. At Harare Airport on 7 March, Zimbabwean police arrested a former SAS officer, Simon Mann, and 66 South African former special forces personnel on a chartered Boeing 727. They have been charged with plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea. In a series of morning swoops on 8 March, a South African former special forces officer, Nick du Toit, and 14 other men in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, were arrested by local police. Full Article