LONDON: British mercenary Simon Mann, who led a failed 2004 coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, has died at the age of 72, British media reported on Satuday.

Mann, who served five years in jails in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea before being pardoned and returning to the UK, died earlier this week while exercising in a gym, the MailOnline reported. The former SAS officer attempted to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema along with fellow coup plotters, South Africans Nick du Toit, Sergio Cardoso, Jose Sundays and George Alerson.

The coup involved flying a plane loaded with weapons and more than 50 former members of the now disbanded South African defence forces’ elite 32 battalion to replace Obiang with exiled opposition activist Severo Moto. Their plane was intercepted by the Zimbabweans at Harare airport in March 2004.

At his trial, Mann implicated Mark Thatcher, — son of Britain’s former prime minister Margaret Thatcher — in the plot to oust Obiang, who has run Equatorial Guinea since a 1979 coup that ousted his uncle.

Thatcher pleaded guilty in a South African court to helping finance the planned coup and was given a four-year suspended prison sentence, but argued he had unwittingly broken the law.

Mann, who attended Britain’s prestigious Eton College and Sandhurst military academy, was said to be the brains behind the coup attempt.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2025