An Analysis Of Sir Mark Thatcher's Failed Coup
David Leigh and Rory Carroll, The Guardian (London), 1/13/05
Sir Mark Thatcher's South African Christmas was infuriating for him by all accounts.
On bail and forbidden even to travel to the airport to greet his ever-loyal mother, he asked the rightwing British historian Andrew Roberts to join the pair of them for quiet drinks on Christmas Day.
His reward was to be described as"the world's most famous mummy's boy" in a diary column by Roberts' partner, the writer Leonie Frieda.
"The atmosphere was one of British bulldog stoicism and pathos-laden cheer," she wrote."Awaiting the extradition papers at any moment, wifeless, childless and to a large extent friendless . . . his sad eyes belied the chipper, breezy chat."
Sir Mark's wife, Diane, left him behind last autumn and flew home to Dallas, Texas, with their two children, Michael, 15, and Amanda, 11.
In recent interviews, the 51-year-old complained that no-one would do business with him any more. He felt"like a cork that's going down the Colorado river and there's nothing I can do about it".
But today's plea bargain has, to a certain extent, got him off the hook. His rescue comes, however, at the price of acquiring a criminal conviction.
This is to add to the long list of gaffes, controversies and questions concerning the unexplained way in which he has acquired his wealth since his mother became prime minister in 1979.
Sir Mark left England in the 80s, after allegations that he had used his mother's position to extract commission payments from a construction company lobbying for work in the Middle East state of Oman.
There have also been persistent claims that he received millions in commission payments from middle-men involved in the vast Saudi Arabian arms deal negotiated by Lady Thatcher.
He moved to Dallas where his wife's family lived, but his business affairs remained opaque.
After an unsuccessful attempt to establish tax residency in Switzerland, he moved to Cape Town in South Africa, where a raffish, largely white group of suburbanites continue to enjoy a Happy Valley lifestyle revolving round the golf course and the swimming pool, despite the ending of apartheid and white rule.
The Christmas before last, the atmosphere chez Thatcher had been, to judge by subsequent testimony, replete with suppressed excitement and whispered confidences.
Invitations to the poolside included mercenaries and their friends among others. Among those present was Simon Mann, late of Eton and the SAS, who had made millions from his mercenary company, Executive Outcomes.
EO had fought on behalf of President dos Santos of Angola, and carried out a lucrative mission in Papua New Guinea. Mann and his men were colleagues of Colonel Tim Spicer, the British soldier whose private army intervention in Sierra Leone caused controversy in Britain.
Another EO associate present was London accountant Greg Wales, who was a link-man with would-be Equatorial Guinea president Severo Moto, currently in exile in Spain, and with government officials in the US, which has big oil interests in Equatorial Guinea.
According to the evidence subsequently collected by the Obiang regime and the South African government, the coup plot had reached a crucial stage by the time of Sir Mark's Christmas party.
Mann was assembling a team of apartheid-era footsoldiers in South Africa, an advance group which had already gone to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, under cover of running a trawling company.
None of the participants was aware that their scheme had already leaked to South African and British intelligence. The Foreign Office even issued a quiet warning last January to Spicer, Mann's former colleague. Spicer says he was unaware of any coup plot, and did not pass on the warning.
Funds were being energetically collected by the plotters, allegedly under the direction of Eli Calil, a Lebanese millionaire who lives in Chelsea and whose influential connections ranged from the disgraced Thatcherite peer Jeffrey Archer to Peter Mandelson. It is not suggested that Mr Mandelson had knowledge of the coup. But"JH Archer" was found in bank records to have contributed cash. Lord Archer denies making the payment.
More than $ 2m was raised around Christmas 2003 to fund the coup. Sir Mark admits he put in money - $ 275,000 in two instalments.
The cash went to a colleague of the mercenaries, pilot Crause Steyl, who in his own plea bargain with the South African authorities gave details of meetings involving Mann, Wales and Sir Mark specifically to discuss the coup.
Intelligence reports obtained by South Africa, and Steyl's own testimony, detail the way Steyl's cash was used to hire a helicopter, charter a light aircraft, and fund Mann's Guernsey bank account, which was recruiting the footsoldiers.
But the South African prosecutors faced legal difficulties in mounting a conspiracy trial against Sir Mark. Their star state witness, Steyl, was vulnerable to accusations he was trying to save his own skin.
Wales remains at large back in England, where he protests his innocence and is unwilling to return to South Africa. Mann has retracted his confession while serving a jail sentence in Zimbabwe, and was not going to be available to testify.
Sir Mark says he made an"investment" to hire a helicopter for what he believed to be an air ambulance company.
Faced with a long, uncertain and expensive legal test of untried anti-mercenary laws, the South African authorities have decided to compromise.
They are now believed to be planning to investigate Sir Mark's tax affairs. None of his friends expects him to remain in South Africa long enough for that to happen.
Sir Mark Thatcher's South African Christmas was infuriating for him by all accounts.
On bail and forbidden even to travel to the airport to greet his ever-loyal mother, he asked the rightwing British historian Andrew Roberts to join the pair of them for quiet drinks on Christmas Day.
His reward was to be described as"the world's most famous mummy's boy" in a diary column by Roberts' partner, the writer Leonie Frieda.
"The atmosphere was one of British bulldog stoicism and pathos-laden cheer," she wrote."Awaiting the extradition papers at any moment, wifeless, childless and to a large extent friendless . . . his sad eyes belied the chipper, breezy chat."
Sir Mark's wife, Diane, left him behind last autumn and flew home to Dallas, Texas, with their two children, Michael, 15, and Amanda, 11.
In recent interviews, the 51-year-old complained that no-one would do business with him any more. He felt"like a cork that's going down the Colorado river and there's nothing I can do about it".
But today's plea bargain has, to a certain extent, got him off the hook. His rescue comes, however, at the price of acquiring a criminal conviction.
This is to add to the long list of gaffes, controversies and questions concerning the unexplained way in which he has acquired his wealth since his mother became prime minister in 1979.
Sir Mark left England in the 80s, after allegations that he had used his mother's position to extract commission payments from a construction company lobbying for work in the Middle East state of Oman.
There have also been persistent claims that he received millions in commission payments from middle-men involved in the vast Saudi Arabian arms deal negotiated by Lady Thatcher.
He moved to Dallas where his wife's family lived, but his business affairs remained opaque.
After an unsuccessful attempt to establish tax residency in Switzerland, he moved to Cape Town in South Africa, where a raffish, largely white group of suburbanites continue to enjoy a Happy Valley lifestyle revolving round the golf course and the swimming pool, despite the ending of apartheid and white rule.
The Christmas before last, the atmosphere chez Thatcher had been, to judge by subsequent testimony, replete with suppressed excitement and whispered confidences.
Invitations to the poolside included mercenaries and their friends among others. Among those present was Simon Mann, late of Eton and the SAS, who had made millions from his mercenary company, Executive Outcomes.
EO had fought on behalf of President dos Santos of Angola, and carried out a lucrative mission in Papua New Guinea. Mann and his men were colleagues of Colonel Tim Spicer, the British soldier whose private army intervention in Sierra Leone caused controversy in Britain.
Another EO associate present was London accountant Greg Wales, who was a link-man with would-be Equatorial Guinea president Severo Moto, currently in exile in Spain, and with government officials in the US, which has big oil interests in Equatorial Guinea.
According to the evidence subsequently collected by the Obiang regime and the South African government, the coup plot had reached a crucial stage by the time of Sir Mark's Christmas party.
Mann was assembling a team of apartheid-era footsoldiers in South Africa, an advance group which had already gone to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, under cover of running a trawling company.
None of the participants was aware that their scheme had already leaked to South African and British intelligence. The Foreign Office even issued a quiet warning last January to Spicer, Mann's former colleague. Spicer says he was unaware of any coup plot, and did not pass on the warning.
Funds were being energetically collected by the plotters, allegedly under the direction of Eli Calil, a Lebanese millionaire who lives in Chelsea and whose influential connections ranged from the disgraced Thatcherite peer Jeffrey Archer to Peter Mandelson. It is not suggested that Mr Mandelson had knowledge of the coup. But"JH Archer" was found in bank records to have contributed cash. Lord Archer denies making the payment.
More than $ 2m was raised around Christmas 2003 to fund the coup. Sir Mark admits he put in money - $ 275,000 in two instalments.
The cash went to a colleague of the mercenaries, pilot Crause Steyl, who in his own plea bargain with the South African authorities gave details of meetings involving Mann, Wales and Sir Mark specifically to discuss the coup.
Intelligence reports obtained by South Africa, and Steyl's own testimony, detail the way Steyl's cash was used to hire a helicopter, charter a light aircraft, and fund Mann's Guernsey bank account, which was recruiting the footsoldiers.
But the South African prosecutors faced legal difficulties in mounting a conspiracy trial against Sir Mark. Their star state witness, Steyl, was vulnerable to accusations he was trying to save his own skin.
Wales remains at large back in England, where he protests his innocence and is unwilling to return to South Africa. Mann has retracted his confession while serving a jail sentence in Zimbabwe, and was not going to be available to testify.
Sir Mark says he made an"investment" to hire a helicopter for what he believed to be an air ambulance company.
Faced with a long, uncertain and expensive legal test of untried anti-mercenary laws, the South African authorities have decided to compromise.
They are now believed to be planning to investigate Sir Mark's tax affairs. None of his friends expects him to remain in South Africa long enough for that to happen.