Mercenary points finger at Thatcher in coup case

(CNN) -- The trial of British mercenary Simon Mann continued Thursday, a day after Mann implicated former friend Mark Thatcher in the alleged plot to overthrow the president of Equatorial Guinea.

Mann, a former British army commando, was arrested four years ago in Zimbabwe and extradited to Equatorial Guinea's capital of Malabo earlier this year to face trial for the alleged coup. The trial began Tuesday and a verdict was expected within days.

Thatcher, the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was arrested along with Mann in 2004. He pleaded guilty in South Africa the following year to unwittingly bankrolling the alleged coup plot; he escaped jail time by paying a fine.

Thatcher said he had given $275,000 toward the charter of a helicopter, which he originally thought was to be used for commercial purposes, but later suspected was to be used by mercenaries.

But Mann said Thatcher knew much more than he claimed, and even helped plan the operation.

"He was not just an investor," Mann testified Wednesday. "I mean, he came on board completely and he became part of the management team."

Excerpts of Mann's testimony were broadcast by Britain's Channel 4 news, which says it has the only camera in the courtroom.

Thatcher paid $350,000 in total, Mann said. The money paid for an Alouette III helicopter and a King Air plane which were to be used in the plot, he said.

Mann said he brought Thatcher to London to meet with Lebanese businessman Eli Calil. Mann said he himself met with Calil three times in London's Chelsea neighborhood and that, during the third meeting, Calil requested his services.

"He asked me if I would assassinate the president. He also talked about the possibility of a guerrilla war in Equatorial Guinea," Mann said in the footage broadcast by Channel 4.

Mann testified that he refused both requests, considering them both unethical, but he did agree to help stage a coup -- an idea which he said foreign governments including Spain and the U.S. supported.

Mann testified that a scout had been sent to the U.S. to gauge the government's reaction to a possible coup.

"The opinion in Washington, the Pentagon, Langley, and the oil companies was basically all the same, which was that the situation, the political situation, in Equatorial Guinea was very unsatisfactory, very dangerous, and that a well conducted change of government would be welcome," he said.

The courtroom did not appear packed, with several of the bright red fabric-covered chairs empty. Bespectacled Mann was dressed in a gray prison outfit, clean-shaven, with his hair combed back.

Channel 4 said Mann testified for four hours. He spent the first two standing up but he was "clearly uncomfortable" and suffering from a hernia, so the judge let him sit for the last two hours, the broadcaster said.

Equatorial Guinea prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty for Mann, the country's U.S. ambassador told CNN Tuesday.

Mann was arrested four years ago after a plane carrying him and about 60 mercenaries landed in Zimbabwe. The government of Equatorial Guinea said the group was on its way to overthrow its president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, but Mann said at the time that they were going to guard a diamond mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A Zimbabwe court convicted Mann of trying to buy weapons illegally, and he served four years in jail there before his extradition to Equatorial Guinea to face charges of leading an abortive coup.

Britain's Foreign Office said it was offering consular assistance to Mann and a consular representative had visited him in prison to check on his welfare.

The British consul from nearby Nigeria was attending the start of the trial in a consular capacity, said a Foreign Office spokesman, who declined to be named in line with policy. Britain has no embassy in Equatorial Guinea.

Mann once served in the British army and was later affiliated with the South Africa-based mercenary firm Executive Outcomes. The firm described itself on its now-defunct Web site as a "military advisory service" that had played a "crucial" role in ending two African civil wars.

At the end of his testimony Wednesday, Mann offered an apology.

"I would like to say that I am very, very sorry for what I tried to do in 2003 and 2004. I'm very sorry for what I've done," he said. "I'm also very happy that we failed, that it didn't work, that nothing actually happened. I'm very happy that that is the case."

Mann also said that those involved in the plot who had not been prosecuted should now face justice.

"I've been in prison for four years," he said. "I'm not the same man as I was, and that is what I think -- I think they should all face justice."

Equatorial Guinea -- slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Maryland -- is the third-largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa and a supplier to the U.S. and Europe.

The former Spanish colony gained independence from Spain in 1968. Obiang seized power in a 1979 coup after which President Francisco Macias Nguema was arrested, tried and executed.

Obiang has remained in power despite several reported coup attempts, Britain's Foreign Office says.

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