FRIENDS of Simon Mann, the Old Etonian former SAS officer who was jailed for his part in a failed African coup, last night urged him to betray the financiers behind the plot after he was deported to Equatorial Guinea.

Mann is believed to be in the notorious Black Beach jail in Equatorial Guinea’s capital, Malabo, where he is expected to face a show trial for plotting a coup against Teodoro Obiang Nguema, dictator of the oil-rich state.

Mann was deported after completing a four-year sentence at Chikurubi jail in Zimbabwe, where the coup plot was discovered. He was arrested along with 67 mainly South African mercenaries in a Boeing as they waited to collect weapons for their mission.

One close friend and former business partner said the Equatorial Guinea government had indicated that it was prepared to do a deal to free Mann if he confessed to his role and gave a detailed account of what had been planned and who had supported it.

He said Mann no longer owed his backers any allegiance and he hoped he would now give the Equatorial Guineans what they wanted. “I don’t understand why he’s been holding out,” he said. “If it can buy him his freedom, why not? It’s not as if they’ve stood by him. He has a child he has never seen. He has a son he last saw when he was four and who misses him terribly.”

If convicted in Equatorial Guinea he faces a minimum 30-year jail term.

Last night the Equatorial Guinea government’s lawyer in the case, Paris-based Henry Page, said: “If he cooperates he could expect to be treated better than if he does not.”

The affair became known as “the wonga coup” after Mann smuggled a note to friends urging them to contact the plot’s backers and persuade them to pay a large “splodge of wonga” to get him out of jail. They included Lady Thatcher’s son Mark, who later pleaded guilty in South Africa to helping to finance the plot.

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