The Wonga Coup

by Adam Roberts

  Others were equally horrified. Several interrogated in Zimbabwe promptly gave detailed confessions. Harry Carlse quickly admitted he was going to Equatorial Guinea to ‘displace the president’ and that a ‘former politician who was violently disposed will be flown in to displace him’. He also confessed to training ‘about sixty black guys’ for the operation. He gave detailed descriptions of pay scales and the roles of others. Simon Witherspoon said he had been recruited by Mann and Kershaw and admitted being involved in a contract ‘to assist the military and police of the new government’ in Equatorial Guinea where ‘there were some political problems’.

  By mid March the plot was completely blown to pieces. Some hundred men were jailed in two African countries. James Kershaw escaped arrest by co-operating promptly with South African investigators, aided by Morgan. Later Crause Steyl followed suit, giving investigators a long account of his role. Ivan Pienaar, Carlse and Lourens Horn and others did so, too. Severo Moto and his aides returned to Madrid. He refused to speak about what happened beyond saying he had no role in a coup that did not happen. When a French documentary film crew asked why du Toit and others named him as a conspirator, he replied blithely that they must have been forced to lie. He and Calil refused to give interviews. A well-informed friend called Karim Kobrossi was supposed, much later, to set the record straight for Calil for the purposes of this book, with an off-the-record discussion. But at the last minute he grew nervous and withdrew, refusing to reschedule.

  In London some pitiful efforts were made for those in jail. Steyl approached Tony Buckingham, Wales (now back in London) and others for funds to pay lawyers. The cigarchomping Buckingham offered £2000, which an insulted Steyl refused. Steyl said he and Wales told Amanda Mann soon after the arrest of her husband. ‘Amanda was pretty cool in the beginning. Greg spoke to her and said it’s been a fuck up. I told her that he [Simon] might be dead. The Zimbabweans were not admitting they had him.’ Rebecca Gaskin, the well-connected American friend of the family, rushed to her side. Wales, who is fond of masquerades, issued feeble statements on behalf of Mann’s company, Logo Logistics, using the name Charles Burrows. (Though Wales has denied he is Burrows, phone and internet records suggest otherwise.) He claimed the men in Harare were mere guards due to work in Congo, briefly adding to public confusion. But a mining journal soon made it clear that the cover story was feeble. Mine owners in eastern Congo lined up to say that they would never need sixty machine-gun-toting foreigners. ‘That’s a mini army,’ said one. Mostly they hired local, unarmed guards.

  Phone records at this time showed a flurry of conversations between several people who crop up in the story of the Wonga Coup. There were the four calls between the homes of Ely Calil and Jeffrey Archer, the novelist, earlier that year; Archer’s lawyers admitted that there were calls between Calil’s home and Archer’s home, but suggested that at least one call did not involve Lord Archer. Then Wales made five calls to Mark Thatcher in the days after it. Henry Page, the lawyer who works for Equatorial Guinea’s government, later suggested: ‘The calls … provide substantial links between the conspirators around the time of the coup attempt.’

  There were several other noteworthy phone conversations around this time, too. Greg Wales, by one reckoning, was in repeated contact with Mann, Calil, Karim Fallaha, Mark Thatcher, Crause Steyl, Morgan, Kershaw and others before the coup. Wales and Morgan, in particular, spoke endlessly, including six times in the two days after the arrests in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea and roughly a hundred times in early 2004. Wales and Morgan spoke by phone at dawn, a few hours after Mann’s arrest. Wales called Calil a dozen times in mid February, at exactly the time of the first coup attempt. He then called Fallaha fifteen times in the days before the March attempt. Phone records also show Calil phoning Moto more than a hundred times over many months before and after the coup attempt, plus some fifty calls to Mann, including many in the month before the March attempt was launched. Other records show constant contact between the various plotters. The flurries of phone calls between many of the plotters increase markedly on and around the dates of the two coup attempts.

  By 15 March the Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, retired and his ruling party, the Partido Popular (PP), suffered a surprise defeat at the polls. No one suggests the coup plot affected the result. Four days earlier, Islamists set off several bombs in Madrid, dispelling any thoughts of Africa. Though Equatorial Guinea continued to claim that Spain backed the coup plot – which seemed evidently true – few took notice. The new government in Madrid refused to discuss any clandestine initiatives of its predecessor.

  Some foreign journalists could visit Equatorial Guinea. They strolled by Malabo’s yellow and red buildings, walked under palm trees and gazed over the harbour where rusting cannons pointed to the grey sea. Walls were turning black from mould. Tropical vegetation choked everything, plants sprung up from cracks in the road and seemed to grow as one watched. A few reporters tried to leave the city to see what rural Equatorial Guineans thought of the whole affair, but police turned them back, threatening arrest. They badly beat one locally hired interpreter. It was a sinister, unwelcoming place. One reporter, widely travelled in Africa, found an untypical ‘disdain for foreigners’. Most Africans are enthusiastic and generous towards outsiders, but here the people ignored him, refusing to talk. Another found Malabo residents ‘surly and arrogant’.

  On 17 March President Obiang strode into a hall at the People’s Palace for a press conference, a rare event. The palace had a Spanish atmosphere. Patterned tiles covered the base of many walls. Obiang stood before a wooden screen. His Moroccan guards scowled a few steps away. He explained that the crisis was over and reassured everybody that ‘government morale was high’ (an anxious world sighed with relief). He thanked Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It was at roughly this time that prison warders beat the German to death. Despite evidence to the contrary, Obiang emphatically denied that his brother, Armengol, had any business relationship with du Toit or any part in the coup, saying that he would have known if it were the case. Some in government promptly grumbled that Armengol had been let off the hook.

  Smelly and Scratcher

  Now Mann and the rest had to make the best of a desperate situation. They faced long jail terms, possibly execution. Their best chance was if interest in the story withered, so that their wealthy or powerful friends could work quietly on their release. But for journalists, criminal investigators, lawyers and the general public, March 2004 was not the end of the tale but the first chapter of a gripping story. Various versions and details of the coup would leak out in the coming months. Arrests, trials and plea bargains drew renewed media attention to an improbable escapade that was, appropriately, dubbed the new Dogs of War, after Forsyth’s novel.

  A proud South African intelligence service did nothing to hide its role in foiling the coup plot. But evidence was left ‘strewn on the battlefield, nobody buried the bodies’, complained Morgan. Documents, witness testimonies and conflicting versions of the coup plot soon appeared in public. Then Morgan was asked to compile further reports about the coup plot by the South Africans. He flew to London and interviewed Wales, Calil and others connected to Mann. They may have been under the impression that Morgan was seeking ways to spring Mann from Zimbabwe. In fact, Morgan was collecting the background detail for his intelligence report for the South Africans. He would later be accused of betraying his friends, though he denied it. One South African prosecutor later suggested there might be recriminations against those who helped foil the plot: ‘I don’t know if there will be violence. I don’t know the band of brothers so well. You won’t get away with double-crossing the likes of Carlse and others. If you are a snitch, you are a snitch. I don’t think they will smile for Nigel Morgan. But I don’t know if they know of Morgan’s role. At first Johann Smith was accused of being the snitch. I know he has been threatened many times.’

  Later much information was leaked to the press. Wales planted his own
stories. Henry Page passed on all sorts of evidence and tips to reporters, who willingly published what they were given. But the document that caused most excitement when it was leaked (though only some months later) was a handwritten letter from Mann in prison. It is dated 21 March, a few days before his first court appearance in Zimbabwe and some two weeks after his arrest. In it, he confirms he knew his cover story of hiring guards for Congo was feeble. He also implicates several others. The letter is addressed to four people: Amanda, his wife; James Kershaw, his assistant; Rebecca Gaskin, a well-connected American, and Morgan. A website address is included on one version of the letter that has been circulated (this has been carefully deleted on others), referring to a website run by Wales in London.

  It is a plea for help. Mann worried that his lawyers, Alwyn Griebenow, a South African, and Jonathan Samukange, a Zimbabwean, were getting little co-operation or money.

  Sunday 21st March 2004

  Please! It is essential that we get properly organised. Please trust and work with Alwyn and Jonathan and the others. They are getting frustrated that they cannot deal with Amanda or with James. Apparently they have been told that they must deal with Rebecca and Nigel. That is fine in principle: but then they are told that Nigel and Rebecca are meeting on TUESDAY etc. etc.

  Our situation is not good and it is very URGENT. They get no reply from Smelly and Scratcher asked them to ring back after the Grand Prix race was over! This is not going well.

  What we need is maximum effort – whatever it takes – NOW. We seriously do NOT need the guys on the ground (Alwyn, Jonathan etc.) having their lives made more difficult! I am sure that is not what you are trying to do but it is the way it seems to them – which to us – is very upsetting.

  The main point is this: do not accept that things are OK or that the local legal system is going to get us through OK. It will not.

  I must say once again: what will get us out is MAJOR CLOUT. We need heavy influence of the sort that Rebecca, Smelly, Scratcher, Nigel, David Hart [have] and it needs to be used heavily and now.

  Once we get into a real trial scenario we are f—d. The opportunity lies in our deportment from Z to SA. The window dressing for this is that in SA we will face the Foreign Military Assistance Act. That would be fine. This can suit Z because they look good and SA do – BUT it will only go with major influence being applied at BOTH ends simultaneously.

  Everyone has to work together, NOW, to achieve this.

  I know you are also trying your best – but so are these guys:

  Please – cannot Amanda and/or Rebecca and/or Nigel actually come here and then talk to me with Alwyn present. That way we can get working together. We need to do so ASAP or it will be too late.

  Love to all,

  Simon Mann

  The letter proved useful to prosecuters and journalists, but not to Mann. It never reached those it was intended for. Instead, it got to the indefatigable British press. The references to ‘Smelly’ and ‘Scratcher’ proved explosive. Nobody doubted that Mann meant Ely Calil when he complained that Smelly ignored calls from his lawyers. Though Calil denied the pungent nickname was his, he may not have known what others called him. Nor did anyone think Scratcher could be anyone but Mark Thatcher. He tried at first to reject the nickname, but his biography notes he was called ‘Mork Scratcher’ at school. And the refusal to be distracted from a car race by a desperate friend in prison sounds all too much like Thatcher.

  One of Thatcher’s friends relates the Grand Prix incident. Thatcher is a car enthusiast and soon after the coup attempt he was interrupted by a call from a gruff Afrikaner. The caller sounded threatening and asked for money. Thatcher said he did not give cash to strangers and told him to get lost, saying ‘I’m watching the Grand Prix.’ He later explained to Vanity Fair magazine that ‘I tend not to give money to people whom I’ve never met and when I don’t know what it’s for’. He subsequently reported the incident to the police. But there were more calls, including some where the caller spoke of knowing ‘where your children go to school’. Thatcher felt the caller was trying to extract money with menaces. Morgan eventually got a call, too. He also sensed a threatening manner.

  Soon afterwards, one of Griebenow’s assistants, Dries Coetzee, was in London. He met Wales at the Savoy hotel and asked for money to feed the prisoners in Zimbabwe and pay defence lawyers. He called himself the gatekeeper who had access to Mann, and claimed he was the ‘only one doing anything about the welfare of the prisoners in Zimbabwe’, who ‘had to be fed’, so ‘where is the money coming from?’ He also said Mann had authorised him to ask for money from certain friends and demanded $100,000. Wales refused.

  Coetzee reportedly said, ‘We are going to come after you people’, which Wales took as a threat. Coetzee returned to South Africa with nothing. Eventually the defence did raise some funds by selling a plane, an Aerostar 600 that Mann had bought a year earlier for $350,000. It was a curious transaction. Mann gave Griebenow power of attorney on 14 March to let him sell it, to pay the lawyers and more. It was rumoured to be sold for a mere $75,000.

  The ‘major clout’ that Mann wanted, possibly through Coetzee, was money for Zimbabwean officials to smooth their deportation to South Africa. To his credit he wrote not only about his own predicament but showed a concern for the others detained. In South Africa they could expect a trial under a decent legal system and, almost certainly, more lenient sentences. But South Africa did not want Mann and his band of men. A case was brought in South Africa’s constitutional court, arguing that the government had a duty to seek the extradition of its nationals from prison in Zimbabwe. The case failed and the government refused to ask either Equatorial Guinea or Zimbabwe to deport their prisoners.

  Wonga

  Then a third page of writing was leaked. This was handwritten, too, apparently by Mann (though in block capitals). Scratcher is named again, along with one Gianfranco Cicogma, who may have promised to invest, and a ‘GW’. The amount Mann and ‘JK’ believed each person owed, presumably in units of 1,000 US dollars, is marked in brackets. The page is not signed. It reads:

  … this is a situation that calls for everyone to act in concert. It may be that getting us out comes down to a large splodge of wonga! Of course investors did not think this would happen. Did I? Do they think they can be a part of something like this with only upside potential – no hardship or risk of things going wrong? Anyone and everyone in this is in it – good times or bad. Now its [sic] bad times and everyone has to f—ing well pull their full weight.

  Anyway JK was expecting project funds inwards to Logo from ‘Scratcher’ (he of the ‘Scratcher’ suite) (200); from Gianfranco Cicogma (200) and GW (500). GW’s was for last resort use only – this is the last resort. As I say, if there is not enough then present investors must come up with more.

  Thus the word ‘wonga’ became closely associated with Mann and the coup plot. For most newspaper readers around the world, wonga meant nothing at all. The English slang baffled most who heard it. The term was used in England, first by Romany (gypsy) people to mean coal, then to mean money. The phrase ‘a splodge of wonga’ – a large pile of cash – is typical of the schoolboy idiom that Mann likes.

  And how did the letter (or letters) come to be published rather than delivered? That probably came down to wonga, too. Mann handed it to someone in prison, and after that it went astray, most likely sold to the highest bidder. His lawyer in London, Anthony Kerman, says diplomatically: ‘The person who was entrusted with the letter, I hypothesise, clearly the person who was entrusted with the letter was not very careful.’ His lawyer in Zimbabwe, Jonathan Samukange, asks rhetorically: ‘In this game of crooks, who do you trust?’

  Nobody, of course.

  20

  Smiling and Dying

  ‘I was extremely distressed, disoriented and extremely vulnerable.’

  Simon Mann

  The accused were shackled hand and foot, in pairs, and dressed in regulation prison garb of khaki shirt
s and baggy shorts, plus sandals. They walked, many limping, beside a high fence. Guards with swagger sticks kept them in line. Zimbabwe’s authorities had decided to convene a court inside Chikurubi prison, in a former hospital ward, and try the plotters promptly. The courtroom was makeshift: rows of single-plank benches for the defendants and the same arrangement for the press. Mann, wearing small, round glasses and a short beard, looked more a scruffy professor than a snarling dog of war. The beefy Afrikaners were Hulk-like in their green prison clothes. At least one had sewn an extra patch of cloth into his shirt. Small handcuffs cut into their thick wrists.

  Mann got no ‘major clout’. It probably would have done him little good anyway. By late March he and the others saw the ‘trial situation’ begin, with the first of many court appearances. Samukange, the politically connected lawyer who took up the defence case in Zimbabwe, said the men were held for immigration offences, while prosecutors dreamt up other charges. Interviewed in Harare, Samukange explained: ‘Initially they prepared ten charges, including ridiculous counts, such as contravening a UN resolution on terrorism and mercenaries that has not even been adopted by our parliament. There were many other crazy things, charges about coups, you name it, they thought of all sorts of things.’ But it became clear it was impossible to charge anyone with more than relatively trivial charges: ‘conspiracy to possess firearms, immigration offences and aviation offences’.