‘At this meeting,’ Nick continued, pointing to the text on the page, ‘if it went ahead, the coup plans must have been finalised. I met Simon two weeks later. That’s when he told me about the plan.’
He also said that Simon had told him there was an outside, foreign backer in the Lebanon. Ely Calil’s name was not mentioned until the following year – and then only his first name. The first time Nick saw his surname was when he was shown Simon’s statement in jail in Malabo. To him, Calil’s role (or professed lack thereof) was irrelevant. ‘It didn’t matter to me where the money came from,’ he concluded.
Severo Moto, Nick said, was initially referred to as ‘the exiled guy’ – he heard his name for the first time at the end of 2003. Mark Thatcher he claimed to have met only once, just before Nick and I had met in Paris in July 2003. As well as discussing helicopters for a project that Thatcher was considering in the Sudan, they also discussed the purchase of an Alouette helicopter to act as emergency medical evacuation transport for the operation, and double up as a gunship. It was clear to Thatcher, Nick believed, that the Alouette would be used in connection with military activity, although Equatorial Guinea was not mentioned in their meeting. Thatcher admitted to financing the charter of a helicopter – to be used in mercenary activity in Equatorial Guinea – but maintained he believed it was an air ambulance, not a gunship.
In May, plans were laid quickly to launch the operation from Guinea Conakry with Liberian rebel support. Nick and Simon travelled there to meet Sekou Conneh, the national chairman of the LURD rebels. Simon, Nick said, gave Sekou a down-payment of around $30,000 in cash to secure his co-operation in their project. Further money was promised if the plan went ahead. It must have been a godsend for Conneh, whose organisation was gearing up for their final assault on the Liberian capital, Monrovia. In return for the money, Conneh was to lend logistical support, as well as men and weapons, if these could not be sourced elsewhere. With Conneh’s blessing, Nick and Simon took a boat trip to the islands off shore from Conakry, scouting a good location for a ship to dock. From these islands the ship would be loaded with men and weapons – and a helicopter gunship, if that deal came through – and then set sail for Equatorial Guinea.
‘It was a good plan, but it had problems. I was never convinced of it,’ Nick explained. ‘There were always different possibilities. The main source of weapons had preferably always been Uganda or Zimbabwe. Getting them to Conakry by airdrop or ship would have been tricky and expensive.’ The coup in São Tomé killed the idea. Nick and Simon had already been discussing using aeroplanes instead. ‘I liked the air option,’ he said. It was closer to his experiences in Special Forces. ‘It’s much quicker, with a faster turnaround.’
So plans went ahead to set up front-businesses in fisheries, agriculture and aviation in Equatorial Guinea itself. Although these were originally set up as a cover for the coup, Nick said he became genuinely motivated to help the people of Equatorial Guinea, and claimed he’d persuaded Simon, who was reluctant at first, to fund them properly. It was a bid, he said, to win the good will of the people.
‘I knew it was misguided, but I didn’t see myself as this forceful colonial master continuing the current state of corruption and oppression just for my own benefit. I saw what happened in South Africa and I really wanted to work with the people. The fisheries idea was my starting point because everybody was raping the country, but nothing came back to the people. Not even fish. In Africa, food supply is the most important economic activity.’
Nick, though, had never seen the vision of Equatorial Guinea the plotters had sketched out on paper. Colonial masters raping the country of its resources were exactly what they had intended to become.
Sitting back on the sofa, Nick conceded that setting up shop with the president’s brother and head of security, Armengol Nguema, was a risky move, but plans proceeded. In order to finalise a contract that would grant Nick’s company a licence to operate as an overseas flight company, Simon suggested they build a bribe of six Toyota Land Cruisers into the proposal for the president’s entourage. They would be fitted with tracking devices, which may have come in useful when the attack was launched.
As 2003 wore on, though, Nick began to feel uneasy about the operation.
‘I told Simon many times that we were being watched by South African Intelligence.’
He sighed and shifted his weight on the couch. An old back injury from a parachute jump made it uncomfortable for him to sit still for long periods of time.
‘In October, Henri showed me an intelligence intercept that one of his contacts had come across. It showed clearly that me and Simon were planning this coup.’
‘What was Henri’s advice?’ I asked.
‘He told me to leave the operation – that we would get our fingers burned.’
By December, Nick was convinced that the South African Secret Service knew the details of the plot.
‘How?’ I wanted to know. ‘How, apart from the intercepts you saw, did you think they knew that?’
Nick drew his knees up. There was nothing of him.
‘Nigel Morgan,’ he replied. ‘Nigel, and then later James Kershaw. Everyone knew Nigel worked for SASS, and that Kershaw was his man. Kershaw saw everything that Simon did. But Simon insisted it wasn’t a problem.’
Nigel Morgan had already himself admitted that it had indeed been a very big problem for Simon.
‘People have said that you tried to back out in January, that there was a meeting on January the fifth where you tried to walk away. Is that true?’
‘I told Simon we weren’t ready, that there were too many security breaks. Equatorial Guinea was changing rapidly. It wasn’t the right time. The capital was covered with building sites and new work being done. It was essential to capture the president, if the coup was to succeed, but I told Simon I didn’t know where he was. If he escaped, it wouldn’t have worked. We just didn’t have enough information to be certain we could capture him.’
‘And what was Simon’s response?’
‘He said we had to go ahead because of the Spanish elections. He told me not to worry about the security issue – the Government in South Africa was supposed to support us. He told everyone they had given us the go-ahead.’
Nick was left with the strong impression that the Spanish would support Moto’s regime ‘for sure’ – and that Simon feared a new (left-wing) Spanish government may exile Moto. Nick wasn’t aware that any of the funding for the coup was alleged to be coming from Spain, nor that they planned to deploy ships and troops after the operation – and was not reassured by it. More to the point, he also wasn’t aware of any planned local uprising – despite what Greg Wales, Simon Mann and Ely Calil may have said afterwards.
The idea had never rung true to me, either: the whole point of my involvement had been to film the black mercenaries from 32 Battalion to make them look as if they were local troops. Nick agreed it sounded like a ploy to lend the plotters a political legitimacy they didn’t have.
‘No, it was a straight takeover – at least, that’s what I was told. I don’t know anything about a local uprising. Simon never mentioned anything about it and I didn’t discuss it with Harry. If they were planning that – vok! It would have been a disaster.’ He looked at me in disbelief. ‘Can you imagine? There we are at the airport and a bunch of local guys in uniform turn up that we don’t know anything about? It would have been a massacre. They’d have been taken out before they even got close.’
In mid-January 2004, Nick admitted that he had faced Simon down at home in Pretoria.
‘You know me, James. I’m not scared of anyone. No one can threaten me. I told Simon that we must not carry on, that it was completely compromised. Simon said that the backers were powerful people, and that they would not let us walk away. I suppose, yes, I was concerned for my family, but I didn’t take it that seriously. The main thing was that Simon was sure, sure as sure, that we had the authorisation to proceed.’
I
n any case, their front-businesses were working out so well that it was barely necessary to mount an attack. Nick thought it might have been possible to get oil deals with Obiang through legitimate channels. Simon wasn’t interested. The backers, he maintained, would not agree to that.
So Nick pressed on against his better judgement, concluding the arms deal in Zimbabwe in reasonable confidence that Colonel Dube of the Zimbabwe Defence Industries would not land them in it: he was interested in the cash, full stop. Nick rubbished the idea that ZDI would have been hesitant to supply rebels in Congo’s Katanga province.
‘I had the impression they were already supplying other rebels, anyway,’ he said. ‘It was a day’s work for them. Easy money.’
As D-Day approached, Nick confirmed he had asked Henri to seek authorisation for the mission from the Scorpions. Nick’s logic was simple: Simon had said the South African Government knew. If that was true, then there could be no harm in alerting the investigative arm of the National Prosecuting Authority, too, given that it would be they, the Scorpions, that would have prosecuted them in South Africa. Nick said he decided that their response would determine whether he went ahead or not.
‘I didn’t speak to the Scorpions myself. Henri did. He told me he’d had a conversation with a woman called Ayanda, who worked for the intelligence services.’
Henri had spoken to Ayanda Dlodlo, later one of President Jacob Zuma’s key advisers. At the time, she was a deputy director in charge of strategy at the Scorpions. Nick claimed that Henri had told him that she’d said the plotters should go ahead because the Scorpions wanted to catch the people financing the coup – but Dlodlo denied she had given Henri the green light. On the contrary, she claimed to have referred him to her boss, Bulelani Ngcuka, then the chief of the National Prosecuting Authority, saying that she did not handle informers at all. On 18 February, Henri maintained in a statement he later gave to the Scorpions (that I’d read in 2004) that he and Ngcuka had discussed the plot, and decided to investigate the backers. Ngcuka accepts that that meeting took place, but denies that the coup was discussed. Nick said he had no idea at all that Henri had even met Ngcuka.
‘Henri left me with the impression that while the Government here weren’t officially going to recognise the coup, we would get some kind of support.’
Whatever the intricacies of who told whom, what, when and where, the outcome was clear: Nick thought – incorrectly – that he’d been given approval to proceed.
‘Did you know’, I said, ‘that Billy Masetlha claimed that the plot had been infiltrated by Government agents? I mean, not just by Nigel Morgan, but that spies were in among the men who were recruited? He said that there were people working for the Government in jail in Zimbabwe.’
Nigel Morgan had also agreed that was the case – that the information from informers had been vital.
‘Yes, that’s true. Lorenzo, he was an informer. I told Sérgio to be careful. There was another guy in Zimbabwe, too. Lorenzo – he was in 5 Recce. I realised six weeks after he was recruited that he worked for Intelligence. We couldn’t get rid of him, so we tried to bring him in instead. He was definitely an informant.’
Other men on the operation had also named Civi Lorenzo and another man from 5 Recce, Bernardo De Sousa Neto. It was said these alleged informers were in fear of their lives in South Africa and had fled to Angola and Mozambique respectively, even though no hard evidence could be produced against them.
To stop intelligence leaks, Nick said he’d urged Simon to get the men out of South Africa as soon as they were recruited. His request was denied and his fears downplayed – and Harry Carlse installed the men in the Hotel 224. The primary reason for the reluctance to move them abroad was lack of funds.
‘How much did the guys who were recruited here actually know?’ I wondered.
Many of the men arrested had claimed, with varying degrees of plausibility, that they were entirely ignorant of the intended destination.
‘The white guys knew. And Neves Tomas, who did the recruiting in Pomfret – he had to know some detail so he could find the right guys for the job. No one on board thought it was a legitimate job, especially not after the first attempt, though most of them thought it was a guard-force job in the Congo.’
‘You know’, I pressed on, ‘that it’s also been suggested that Harry Carlse and Louwtjie Horn worked for National Intelligence. Is that true?’
‘No.’ Nick was emphatic. ‘Harry’s okay. I brought him in, and Harry brought Louwtjie in. It’s impossible.’
‘You’re absolutely sure? There were widespread rumours at the time. People have pointed to the fact that he and Louwtjie were acquitted without sentence in Zim.’
‘Harry? It’s not possible. He couldn’t have been convicted of immigration offences like the other men on the Boeing because he entered Zimbabwe separately from the main group. He made a plea bargain here, but he wasn’t an agent. I really had to persuade him and Louwtjie to join us. They weren’t interested at first because their business in Iraq was making good money. Ag, you know, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone claimed that I was working for National Intelligence, as well! It seems now everyone who was recruited in this operation was a spy. The Scorpions, Intelligence... they spread rumours to try and get us fighting among ourselves. Divide and rule.’
The idea that Harry Carlse and Louwtjie Horn had definitely been informers had never seemed quite right to me, either. Carlse was the only person involved in the coup (apart from the three other men who’d remained locked up with him in Equatorial Guinea) that Nick was in touch with. His evidence was said to have played a significant role in the decision to drop the case against the other men tried in South Africa – even though he was called as a witness for the state. Horn and Carlse were now in business with some of the other mercenaries – which, along with the fact that they’d been prosecuted in South Africa and bankrupted in the process, was another compelling reason to believe that Nick was right.
Given that, by his own admission, Nick knew the inner workings of the plot were exposed, I was at a loss to comprehend why he decided to proceed – ‘green light’ from the Scorpions or not.
‘Ja, it was stupid.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘It was stupid to trust Simon.’ He paused and gathered his thoughts. ‘And Henri. They said we were covered. I thought they were only interested in catching the backers. When we were released from Black Beach, I said to Simon, “Why did you tell Nigel Morgan everything?” He said he had because the South African Government was on board. We had an hour to talk, me and Simon, as we waited together after our release. He told me he has papers that prove the guilt of the backers and the involvement of the South African Government.’
‘What kind of documents?’
‘I don’t know. He just said he kept copies of everything, and that they were in a safe place. He said one of the documents proved the South African Government had authorised the operation.’ We considered for a moment in joint silence how profoundly improbable the truth of that statement really was.
‘I thought Simon knew what he was doing, but he doesn’t have any operational experience—’
‘But you do!’ I cut across him.
‘Ja, James, you might say I do have operational experience, so why trust all those people who don’t?’ He laughed at the absurdity of his own position.
‘But why? Why – and this is something I really don’t understand – why, even if you had gone ahead, didn’t you run when Simon was arrested? You had hours, and aircraft – and a boat!’
I could feel myself becoming exasperated with him all over again. He leaned forward and opened his palms.
‘I thought we’d be okay. We had no guns, no military equipment, no paperwork or plans. If we’d run, it would have looked like an admission of guilt …’ He toyed with the empty cup on the coffee table in front of him. ‘It was greed. Just greed. Losing all of that, the businesses we’d built up.’ He gave a half-smile, and shrugged his shoulders.
‘In the hour you had with Simon,’ I asked, ‘what else did you talk to him about?’
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that particular conversation.
‘I asked him about Nigel Morgan, like I said, and about Tim Roman.’
Roman was the American aviation and logistics expert that Simon had gone to see (with Carlse and Horn) in Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo, immediately before flying to Harare to marry up the weapons and the men on the Boeing 727.
‘What about Roman?’
‘I asked him why he went to see him when everyone knows he works for the Americans.’
‘Knows or thinks?’
It seemed to me that almost all Americans who lived in the Congo – especially those with a pilot’s licence – was suspected of working for US Intelligence at one time or another. Roman was an extravagant character, for sure – a close personal friend of Congolese leader Joseph Kabila (for whom he worked as the presidential pilot). He was also implicated by the United Nations in a series of gun-running and sanctions-busting flights across sub-Saharan Africa.
‘Everyone in the region knows he works for the Americans. I don’t know why Simon went to see him. I didn’t know he was going there.’
Nick seemed convinced of Roman’s affiliation. I had no way of knowing whether he was right or wrong. I explained the curious transatlantic flight of N4610 – the Boeing 727 that Simon had purchased at the last possible moment. Did he think that the CIA was involved in the operation?
‘I don’t know, but ja, it wouldn’t surprise me. The details of that flight and Roman being involved somehow – that proves it for me. You’ll never get to the bottom of it, though. Most probably only Simon knows those things.’
If Nick didn’t know, I suspected my chances of ever finding out were close to zero. Chasing down the exact itinerary of the 727 remained fruitless.
My Friend The Mercenary Page 41