Mann names Calil and Thatcher in coup plot

Simon Mann, the former SAS officer who tried to overthrow the president of Equatorial Guinea in a coup, has made his first public admission of guilt in an exclusive TV interview broadcast on Tuesday night after being filmed two weeks ago in Equatorial Guinea's notorious Black Beach prison. Pitched by Channel 4 News as "the man prepared to tell all", Mann lived up to that billing by admitting his involvement in the 2004 plot and by identifying London-based tycoon Ely Calil as the main instigator. Mann also insisted that Sir Mark Thatcher was "part of the team". But he but said that one 'JH Archer', recorded as giving money, was not the novelist Jeffrey Archer, as had been widely mooted. He also categorically ruled out Peter Mandelson, the European Union Commissioner, whose name has been drawn into the story. Asked what connection the two men had with the coup Mann replied, “They’ve got none at all. God knows where that came from.” Calill, a British businessman of Lebanese-Nigerian origin, has previously denied involvement in the 2004 coup plot and did so again last night when asked to comment by Channel 4 News. Thatcher, who pleaded guilty in 2005 in a South African court to "unwitting" involvement in the coup attempt by funding the purchase of an aircraft, said last night that he had no further comment. Mann, an Old Etonian, looked more relaxed and fit than when he was imprisoned in Zimbabwe. Dressed in a crisp grey prison uniform, with his hands and feet cuffed, he described himself as the coup's "manager... not the architect and not the main man." Earlier he described the whole affair as a "swashbuckling fuck-up... because it failed". Although the lure of millions - or "wonga" as he called it - was a driving factor, Mann claimed that his “primary motivation was to help, as I saw it, the people of Equatorial Guinea”. A repentant Mann told Channel 4 that he regretted not getting out of the plot. “I regret all that terribly, but when you go tiger shooting, you sort of don’t expect the tiger to win.” He also revealed that he had been “kidnapped” and smuggled out of Zimbabwe in February and that “gratuitous violence” had been used. During the plane trip to Equatorial Guinea, Mann claimed, he was "smacked around" with an AK-47 and manacled in leg irons. The broadcast had been delayed after Mann's wife, Amanda, and his London lawyer, won a High Court injunction to halt it, claiming Mann had been forced to talk by the prison authorities. But Mann's sister, Sarah Grootenhuis, visited him in prison last week and Mann confirmed he wanted the interview to be shown. ·