Simon Mann, the former SAS officer who led an attempted coup against the tiny oil-rich West African country of Equatorial Guinea, claimed last night that Sir Mark Thatcher was “part of the team”.

Mann, who was flown out of Zimbabwe to face a trial next week in Equatorial Guinea, said that he was the coup plot manager but that its instigator was Ely Calill, a British businessman of Lebanese-Nigerian origin.

Mr Calill has previously denied involvement in the 2004 coup plot and did so again last night when asked to comment by Channel Four News, which conducted the interview with Mann at Black Beach prison in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea’s capital.

Sir Mark Thatcher pleaded guilty in 2005 in a South African court to “unwitting” involvement in the coup attempt by funding the purchase of an aircraft. Last night he said that he had no further comment, other than to express his sympathy with Mann for his prison ordeal.

Mann also claimed that the coup plot only went ahead because he was “getting indications” from both the Spanish and South African governments that they were in favour of it. Both governments said that the claim was “completely baseless”. But when the names of Peter Mandelson, the European Union Commissioner, and Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare were put to Mann by the TV news team, he categorically ruled them out of the affair.

Both Mr Mandelson and Lord Archer have been drawn into the story in press reports suggesting that the names of “Establishment figures” would emerge from Mann’s version of events surrounding the failed coup plot.

Asked what connection they had with the attempt, the old Etonian said: “They’ve got none at all. God knows where that came from.”

Dressed in a grey prison uniform, with his hands and feet cuffed but looking relaxed and fit, Mann, a friend of Baroness Thatcher’s son, said: “If you want to believe the whole thing was a swashbuckling f***-up, well it is because it failed.” He added: “I was, if you like, the manager. Below me were a number of people. Above me in the machine were other people.”

While money had been a factor, he claimed that his “primary motivation was to help, as I saw it, the people of Equatorial Guinea”.

Mann, who was flown from prison in Zimbabwe to the tiny West African country a month ago, is due to stand trial in Malabo next week.

Of his time since his capture with a plane-load of mercenaries in Zimbabwe and conviction there for buying illegal weapons, he said: “I regret all that terribly, but when you go tiger shooting, you sort of don’t expect the tiger to win.

“I have been saying I’m sorry to everybody for four years now, actually. I’m going to write it on my forehead. Sorry,” he added and laughed.

Channel 4 had to overturn a court injunction banning broadcast of the interview after Mann’s lawyers said he had only taken part in it under duress from the authorities. His sister went to the High Court in London to say he wanted the interview shown.

He denied any coercion. “I have been treated well. It isn’t a five-star hotel but there is water, there is food.”

He said that he had been interviewed rather than interrogated. “I’ve been helping the authorities here as best as I can.” But he added that he had been “kidnapped” and smuggled out of Zimbabwe against the country’s laws and delivered to Equatorial Guinea and that “gratuitous violence” had been used.

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