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Sierra Leone: Notorious British Mercenary Explains Role in Country
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Concord Times (Freetown)
25 March 2008
Posted to the web 25 March 2008
Tanu Jalloh
Notorious British mercenary, standing trial after a botched attempt to topple Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has confessed that he also helped former President Alhaji Dr Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.
Simon Mann is being held in Black Beach prison, described as a true hell on earth, in the country's capital Malabo. He recently told TV Channel 4, after the latter won a legal battle to broadcast an interview with him, that "Sandline's most famous operation in West Africa was its support of President Kabbah of diamond-rich Sierra Leone."
His claim was corroborated by Tim Spicer, who also trained at Sandhurst before serving in the Scots Guards and SAS and later became head of Sandline.
According to him, he worked closely with former British Ambassador Peter Penfold while in Sierra Leone.
While contacts with the former British Ambassador could not be established at all, Dr. Kabbah, who has been preparing ahead of his commonwealth assignment in Zimbabwe, could also not be reached.
However, in language similar to that of the Labour government's description of its own foreign policy, Spicer described Sandline's role in Sierra Leone as "ethical." Mann was said to have echoed that view of his own activities in Equatorial Guinea in his Channel 4 interview.
Meanwhile, in a July 20, 2004 commentary published by TIMESONLINE, Michael Gove argued that the world needed such men as Simon Mann.
"In 1995 Sierra Leone was at the mercy of a terrorist outfit called the RUF. Under their leader Foday Sankoh they specialised in the gang-rape of minors, the use of children to murder their own parents and the random amputation of their victims' lips, ears and limbs. It was the private military company Executive Outcomes that defeated the RUF and cleared the way for the democratic rule of President Kabbah," he stated.
President Kabbah was, however, persuaded to eject the mercenaries before they could complete their work. In May 1997 he was deposed in a coup.
Gove added that: "If Executive Outcomes had been allowed to finish its job in the first place, innocent African lives would have been saved, a materially wealthy nation would not have had its resources squandered by torturers and the West would have been able to pocket a strategic gain without the sacrifice of precious regular soldiers."
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Described as "dog of war" the 53-year old was a co-founder of the mercenary company Executive Outcomes and its successor, Sandline. Both mercenary mineral extracting companies have had a long history of involvement in mineral ventures especially in the diamond rich towns of Kono and Tongo.
Mann was arrested at Harare airport in Zimbabwe along with 69 South African mercenaries in 2004. They were on board an Antonov plane loaded with sleeping bags and supplies.
A Zimbabwean court found Mann guilty of firearms and immigration charges in 2004. He was held for four years before being extradited to Equatorial Guinea in February. He is currently being held in the notorious Black Beach prison where a German national, Eugen Nershz, was said to have died shortly after being incarcerated.
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