Calil denies coup plot as Mann jailed

Simon Mann, the Old Etonian soldier of fortune who took part in the bodged 2004 coup to overthrow President Obiang, leader of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, finally knows his fate. On Monday, in the western African state's capital Malabo, he was sentenced to 34 years in jail. The conclusion of the trial has prompted Ely Calil, the Lebanese businessman accused by Mann, along with Sir Mark Thatcher, of masterminding the plot, to speak about the matter for the first time.

In an interview in today's Daily Telegraph, Calil admits that he helped finance the operation, but that Mann widely overstepped the parameters of his brief, which, he claims, was only to fly the opposition leader Severo Moto into the country and protect him. "There was no coup plot," says Calil. "There was a scheme to fly him [Moto] back and to protect him while he was in the country. Severo's belief was that if he was protected in his home town and could remain alive for a few days, a political storm would occur that would sweep away the present regime. I am not a coup planner. I don't have a talent in that sense.

"I now believe they [Mann and his team] were going to spend some time somewhere else, train and recce the place and meet up eventually with Moto in Gabon. From there, they would go over the border to Severo's village, gather his people who would start screaming and demonstrating. I didn't know any of this at the time. But since my name has been dragged into this I have made it my business to find these things out." (Continued below)

Calil blames Mann, 56, for the misunderstanding about the operation. "It was his lack of professionalism, his lack of discretion, his lack of judgment that caused this situation.” He further claims the plot detailed by Mann was "pure fantasy" concocted by Equatorial Guinean authorities for political purposes and that Mann was reading from a script to save his skin.

Calil also insisted that Sir Mark Thatcher had nothing to do with the attempted coup (Thatcher paid for a helicopter that was to be used in the operation, but claims he thought it was an air ambulance). "He was like a prize to Simon. They got drunk in South Africa together and who knows what they talked about but he had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with a coup."

Mann, meanwhile, is hoping either for a pardon from President Obiang, or that he will be allowed to spend at least part of his sentence in a British jail instead of the notorious Black Beach prison in Malabo where is now destined to remain.