UPDATE, 3.45pm: IT is being reported that a former West Woodhay man has been freed from a notorious prison in Equatorial Guinea.
Simon Mann, aged 57, is believed to have been pardoned by the country's president earlier today (Tuesday) and told to leave the country with 24 hours.
It is thought the former SAS officer was freed on health grounds, after undergoing a hernia operation last year.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said they could not yet confirm that Mr Mann has actually been released but said they were told by the government in Equatorial Guinea earlier today that his release was "imminent".

A FORMER West Berkshire man in prison in Equatorial Guinea has been pardoned, according to government reports.
Simon Mann, who lived in West Woodhay, was sentenced to 34 years in jail last July for his part in a failed attempt to overthrow the brutal African regime.
But just 16 months later it is being reported on the Equatorial Guinea Ministry of Information website that the president had now granted a full pardon to Mr Mann, on compassionate grounds.
During his trial former SAS officer Mr Mann admitted leading a team of mercenaries to overthrow the tiny oil-rich state’s despotic ruler Teodoro Obiang Nguema and named Sir Mark Thatcher and billionaire Ely Calil as key backers.
The coup attempt ended in failure when Mr Mann and his team were arrested in Harare airport, Zimbabwe, in March 2004.
After four years in Zimbabwe’s notorious Chikrubi prison, Mann was sent to Black Beach prison in Equatorial Guinea in February last year – despite the lack of an extradition treaty between the two countries.
At the time Newbury MP Richard Benyon led calls for the dictator to grant Mr Mann clemency or allow him to serve part of his sentence in the UK.
The son of former England cricket captain George Mann, Mr Mann moved to West Woodhay as a boy in the early 1960s, although his family now lives in Hampshire.