On 7th March 2004, former SAS soldier and mercenary Simon Mann
prepared to take off from Harare International Airport with an
aeroplane full of heavy weaponry and guns for hire. Their
destination: the former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea. Their
mission: to remove one of the most brutal dictators in Africa in a
privately organised coup d'etat. The plot had the tacit approval of
Western intelligence agencies and, according to Mann, the backing of
a European government. Simon Mann had personally planned, overseen
and won two wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. Everything should have
gone right. Why, then, did it go so wrong? When Simon was released
from five years' incarceration in two of Africa's toughest prisons,
he made worldwide headlines. Since then, he has spoken to nobody
about his experiences. Now, he is telling everything, including: *
His belief that the CIA deliberately compromised the coup to court
favour with Equatorial Guinea's President Obiang, in return for
access to the country's vast oil resources. * How the British
government approached Simon in the months preceeding the Iraq war,
asking him to suggest ways in which a justified invasion of Iraq
could be engineered. * The real story behind the involvement of Mark
Thatcher in the coup plot * Simon will also tell of his pain when he
had to tell his wife, Amanda, who gave birth to their fourth child
while he was incarcerated, that he believed he would never be freed.
This is Simon's remarkable first-hand account of his life: an
account that will read like a thriller as it takes us into the world
of mercenaries and spooks: of murky imternational politics, big oil
and big bucks; of action, danger, love, despair and betrayal.
