by Simon Mann
The same doctor told me that three weeks solitary (as against my eighteen months, more or less) has been shown to be enough to wobble anyone’s sanity gyros; that two months or more of solitary confinement has been shown to bring about lasting physiological damage. That’s convincing. That tells me that my sanity system works.
Getting to know my children again has been interesting and fun. Easier for them than me (I hope) because children are more rubbery. They get to the point. Almost the first thing that I had to tell them about, then show to them in full, was how I had wiped my arse, while in handcuffs and leg-irons.
Arthur (now six) wants to know about the guns. He asked me, at full volume, in a too-quiet Méribel cable car.
‘Daddy, when you were in prison, what did you do with the guns?’
This was asked not for his historic interest, but because he wanted one. Others in the cable car had to work hard to hide their curiosity.
Tony Buckingham is the head of Devon Oil and Gas. He’s done well! Now I know the huge lengths that he went to in order to try and help me.
Tim Spicer is the founder and head of Aegis, the most successful UK PMC of recent years. Tim hugely helped my older children while I was ‘away’, and helped me with the last journey from EG back to Blighty.
The death of Gerhard Merz is still hazy. What is more in focus is the lack of reaction to that death by the German government. They are not normally backward about coming forward when one of their citizens may have wrongfully died.
My old EO crowd are now all at sea, off Somalia, trying to sort out the pirates, as well as those poor people’s endless tribal strife ashore. They are in big trouble with the UN. It is the old Tim Spicer story: what they are doing may be right, but it is against a UN Order. Abu Dhabi is picking up that bill. Petrodollars.
Crause Steyl has been to visit me, as charming and fun as ever.
I have some news of my old friends. I haven’t been able to help anybody because Amanda and the children are my priorities one to ten.
Zeb was shot dead in a police ambush. Lucky is back in Chikurubi having been ambushed and wounded in a separate incident. Munetze and Huku have both been hanged. I dread to think what things are like in Chikurubi by now.
I have raked over some old coals. It turns out that the South African government admitted in court that their NI man in Madrid made contact with Severo Moto just as the coup was kicking off.
It seems that Niek told more than one person who was a part of the Op that the Op would never happen. He wasn’t telling me that at the time. After my arrest Niek and his men up in EG stayed at liberty for 24 hours. No effort to escape. Odd, when he knew what had happened to us in Zimbabwe. When he knew what had happened to the rest down in South Africa.
Inchmery, our beautiful old home, has been sold. It was too much to keep going, and Amanda achieved an offer too good to turn down. For the move itself, Amanda and the children went away to Croatia. That meant that Amanda’s mother, Marilyn (a great supporter, who had lived with and helped Amanda all the time I was away) and I, could get on with the job.
The move nearly killed me. It was a crisis of my spirit. It seemed as if I had lost Amanda and the children forever, having just found them again. Worse, in the stuff of the house was all their lives. All that I had missed.
Poor Marilyn. She couldn’t work out why I kept disappearing. Over and over I found myself breaking down. Hiding from the useless movers. In fact their uselessness helped, kicking them into action a cure.
As to what went wrong with my UK legal representation, much of that is still a mystery. It’ll probably stay that way. Amanda and I once spent two hours in the offices of a large City of London law firm. We had the undivided attention of four partners. Yet the charge for this extravagant show of force was zero. Nada di nada.
Even more amazing was that this meeting was held in order to persuade us to take my lawyer to court. The City law firm in question felt so strongly that they wanted to take on a fellow lawyer. They were sure that there was enough to go on. That my interests had not been properly taken care of.
At the end, it was our decision. Firstly, I could not bear the thought of what such a case would mean: fear and loathing. Secondly, it was clear to me what his defence would be, at every turn: I was acting on instructions…
Lastly, I have been asked by many people about technological and other changes that – following my absence – I was surprised by. Amanda – the Mercenatrix, or The Bitch of War as she now likes to call herself – had let the side down while I was away, by deserting workman’s tea in favour of a huge range of what she would call lesbian tea.
More techno than that was the iPhone. Being a longtime Apple fan and a trained systems analyst, it was not surprising to find the MacBook and iPhone. The shock was to find that Amanda is now a power user of both.
Kass is alive and well, in fiction form. Maybe she will be my future voice, battling the Barrel Boyz. (And not everyone in Big Oil or the CIA or MI6 is a Barrel Boy … but there are a few: they are the bent ones.)
The thank you that I said at the front of this book – to all who tried to help me in any way, while I was in prison – I say again: thank you.
GLOSSARY
ANC African National Congress
APC Armoured Personnel Carrier
ARC Assisted Regime Change
ASL Above Sea Level
ATC Air Traffic Control
AU African Union
BAOR British Army of the Rhine
BMP Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty (Fighting Vehicle of the Infantry)
CAS Close Air Support
Casevac Casualty Evacuation
CCB Civil Cooperation Bureau
CESID Centro Superior de Informacion de la Defensa
CIO Central Intelligence Organisation
CLSTP Committee for the Liberation of São Tomé and Principe
COMCEN Communications Centre
COMSEC Communications Security
COOA Chief Operating Officer Africa
DGSE Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure
DMW DiamondWorks
DOG Devon Oil and Gas
DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo
DSL Defence Systems Limited
DSO Distinguished Service Order
E&E Escape & Evasion
ECOMOG Economic Community of West African States
Monitoring Group
EG Equatorial Guinea
ELINT Electronic Intelligence
EO Executive Outcomes
EOR Earliest Date of Release
ETE Estimated Time En Route
EUCs End User Certificates
FAA Forcas Armadas de Angola
FGA Fighter Ground Attack
FLEC Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda
FMA Foreign Military Assistance Act of 1998
FNLA National Liberation Front of Angola
FUP Forming-Up Place
GPS Global Positioning System
INT Intelligence
ITCZ Inter Tropical Convergence Zone
JV Joint Venture
KP Key Points
KZ Killing Zone
LAN Local Area Network
LCT Landing Craft Tank
LO Liaison Officer
LURD Liberians United for Democracy and Development
LZ Landing Zone
MC Military Crosses
MI Military Intelligence
MPLA Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
MTS Military Technical Services Pty Ltd
NGS Naval Gunfire Support
NI National Intelligence
NM Nautical Miles
NVGs Night Vision Goggles
OIC Officer in Charge
PMC Private Military Company
PNG Papua New Guinea
PPEG Progressive Party of Equatorial Guinea
PW Papa Whisky
RHIB Rigid-Hulled Inflatable Boat
RIC Reconnaissance Int
erpretation Cell
RUF Revolutionary United Front
RV Rendezvous
SA NI South African National Intelligence
SADF South African Defence Force
SAM Surface to Air Missile
SBLO Special Branch Liaison Officer
SBS Special Boat Service
SEAL Sea, Air and Land
SHs Support Helicopters
SIGINT Signals Intelligence
SPLA Sudan People’s Liberation Army
SPO Senior Prison Officer
TAC HQ Tactical Headquarters
TAS True Airspeed
U/S Unserviceable
UNITA Union for the Total Independence of Angola
ZDI Zimbabwe Defence Industries
ZPS Zimbabwe Prison Service
ZULU Greenwich Mean Time (military term)
APPENDIX ONE
Prison Diary (see p. 309): During 2008, while in solitary confinement in Black Beach prison in EG, to maintain my sanity I obsessively kept a log to help reinforce the four legs of my daily regime. Certain symbols recur: a coronet (third column, fifth down – 27th June) refers to Amanda (Duchess) and when I spoke to her on the phone; a clock face – on that same date I also received my heart monitor to help with my exercise regime; W2 on that same date again I was interviewed not just by one interrogator but two (General Manuel and Attorney General).
APPENDIX TWO
Aeronautical Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) chart (see p. 309). This chart in combination with my flight simulator (which I also drew) enabled me to fly around the world in my aircraft – N90676 – working the radio. On more than one occasion I drew a crowd of officers laughing as I mimicked the accents of the local people ‘below’.
APPENDIX THREE
The two signed agreements dated 22 July 2003 between me and Severo Moto detailing the road map for regime change and the financial packages for me and my team.
My maternal grandfather, Brigadier William Marshall Clark, serving with the South African Division in Italy in World War II.
Captain Frank Mann, Scots Guards in World War I. According to the magazine caption, at the time of this drawing he had recently been wounded for the second time.
The Manns at the family estate, Thelveton, in 1929. Second from the left is my grandfather, Frank. The boy third from left is my father. Fourth from left is my great grandfather, Sir Edward Mann, the 1st Baronet. All the guns are by Purdey.
Captain Frank Mann, Scots Guards World War I.
Major George Mann, Scots Guards World War II. He looks too young for his rank and decorations.
Lord’s Cricket Ground, June 1949, England v New Zealand.
The late Queen Mother, my grandfather ‘Pop’, King George VI and Daddy shaking hands. The man on the far right is Len Hutton, a future England captain.
My portrait, taken by Lenare in 1975. I was ordered to go to him by my mother, who had heard that he was about to retire.
Back seat in a Red Arrow Hawk, 1994.
Competing in the 1997 Peking to Paris motor race. The Aston Martin DB 5 – car 79 – with its Skipper, Tony Buckingham. Somewhere behind is Everest, seen from the Chinese side. That evening, at this altitude, Tony’s Cohiba Esplendidos cigar laid him out flat.
Car 79 reaches Paris.
Tim Spicer, Tony Buckingham, me and Michael Grunberg. A PMC line up: Sandline and Aegis, Executive Outcomes, New Century.
On Tony’s yacht, 1995: I’m at the wheel, Tony Buckingham’s arm round my shoulder, while Andy Smith hangs onto the backstay. Andy died shortly afterwards in an air crash in Entebbe.
Amanda and me in the South of France, 1996
Amanda out shooting in the November of my pardon and return home, 2009.
Taken by Amanda in 1993 at Hobachere game camp, Namibia, the evening before the Angolan top brass flew in. We went for a long walk and the pump-action shotgun was an unused precaution against a pride of lions known to be around. UNITA were also possibly around.
A King Air fit for a King. A Beechcraft King Air 200 chartered by Crause Steyl to fly Severo Moto into Malabo, the night of the attempted Coup d’État.
Lady Thatcher, Mark Thatcher and me, looking for game in 2002.
Mark Thatcher in one of the Shamwari Landrovers. In Shona, Shamwari means comrade.
Amanda and me on the same Thatcher holiday.
President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.
© Getty Images
Severo Moto. The man who would have headed the Interim Government, had the attempted Coup d’Etat been successful.
© Getty Images
A cartoon of me in Private Eye, shortly after my release.
On trial in Equatorial Guinea, 2008, I had just been sentenced to 35 years.
© Getty Images
The Blues & Royals cavalry officer behind the wedding couple is Captain Jack Mann, my second son, 2011.
Captain Peter Mann, 1st Btn Scots Guards, on operations in Afghanistan. Peter’s my eldest son and this was his second tour.
Captain Jack Mann, Blues & Royals, on operations in Afghanistan. Jack also had a tour in Iraq.
On my release, November 2009. Front row, left to right: Arthur, Freddy, Bess, Lilly, Sophie. Back row left to right: Peter, Amanda, me, Jack.
Sophie’s wedding: Jack, Lilly, Amanda, Will & Arthur, Sophie, me and Bess, Freddy, Peter. Summer 2011
Freddy at Inchmery, while I was ‘away’. An unlucky sea bass, freshly caught. I couldn’t look at photos like this when I was in prison; they hurt too much.
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