A FORMER West Woodhay man has arrived back in the UK after being freed from prison in Equatorial Guinea.
Simon Mann, aged 57, arrived at Luton airport this afternoon (Wednesday) after being pardoned by the country’s president.
The former SAS officer was sentenced to 34 years in jail last July for his part in a failed attempt to overthrow the brutal African regime.
It is believed the decision to pardon Mr Mann was a personal one taken by the president and may have been on health grounds, after he underwent a hernia operation last year.
During his trial 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.
He will now get the chance to meet his youngest son Arthur, who was born while he was in prison, for the first time.