Coup plotter faces life in Africa's most notorious jail

Even by the standards of desolate prisons in the rawest parts of Africa, Black Beach has built up a grim reputation for systematic brutality and neglect. Torture is routine for inmates who are often denied medical treatment for their wounds. Food rations are so meagre that there is death from starvation. Few are allowed family visits.

This is where Simon Mann, old Etonian, former SAS soldier and bon viveur is now heading after losing his court battle against extradition to Equatorial Guinea over charges of organising a coup. And, as one of the ringleaders of the plot to overthrow the country's vengeful president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, he has been warned to expect "special treatment".

The decision by the Harare magistrate Omega Megumbate to extradite was a bitter blow for 54-year-old Mann, who has been confiding to friends that he was hopeful of winning freedom this week for good behaviour, after three years' imprisonment in Zimbabwe. Mann's legal team said yesterday that they will appeal against the judgment, emphasising that it would be inhumane to send him to Equatorial Guinea because "conditions at Black Beach prison in the capital, Malabo, were life threatening".

His barrister, Jonathan Samkange, vainly pleaded to the magistrate during the hearing: "Your worship, you did not address the question that he will not get a fair trial, you did not address the question that he will be tortured."

The Equatorial Guinea government has promised Zimbabwe that they will not execute Mann. The verdict on his trial, however, appears to be a foregone conclusion. Ole Obono, the country's attorney general, said yesterday: "Simon Mann was attempting to take the life of the president of Equatorial Guinea. He wanted to overthrow the government. Therefore, the penalty for the charges in Equatorial Guinea are very, very serious. Having given our word to Zimbabwe that the death penalty will not apply, the sentence will be long-term imprisonment, with a minimum of 30 years."

Black Beach is already familiar to some of the mercenaries who attempted to remove President Obiang in a coup which involved an international and exotic cast of characters including Mark Thatcher. The South African Nick Du Toit, who is said to have played a crucial role in the plot, is imprisoned there along with 10 other foreigners sentenced in November 2004 after a trial Amnesty International condemned as grossly unfair.

One man arrested over the coup, Gerhard Eugen Nershz, a German national, died after what authorities described as "cerebral malaria with complications". According to inmates, however, he had been severely beaten before being taken to the prison hospital just a few hours before his death.

The fact that Nershz was taken for treatment at all showed that even the prison guards were worried by his condition, say human rights officials. If anything, the regime has got even harsher since that death. An Amnesty report charges: "Since at least early January 2007 the prison authorities have not provided medical treatment for prisoners. Medical personnel have not been allowed to visit the prison nor have prisoners been taken for treatment to hospital or to see a doctor outside the prison."

Inmates have to wear handcuffs and anklets at all times, even when asleep, and are not let out of their cells 24 hours a day. The lack of food, the daily abuse and unhygienic conditions mean that they are also easily susceptible to illness. Rations for the inmates were cut two years ago from a cup of rice a day to one or two bread rolls. Those on punishment details are often denied even this bare sustenance. Kolawole Olaniyan, Amnesty's head of Africa programme, said: "This is a scandalous failure by the Equatorial Guinea authorities to fulfil their most basic responsibilities under international law. Unless immediate action is taken, many of those detained will die."

Du Toit's wife, Belinda, said: "He is now so thin that he looks like a grain of rice. When my phone rings I expected the call to say my husband is dead. The water is not clean, they just get water where they can. There have been outbreaks of cholera. I don't know what to say, I can't believe there are still places that operate this way."

The discovery of oil has made Equatorial Guinea a rich place. It was this prize which drove the coup plotters to take over the country, and, it is believed, it was the offer of cheap fuel by President Obiang to Robert Mugabe which greased the wheels of Mann's extradition. But the majority of the population live in poverty in a kleptocracy and decades of oppression have resulted in an estimated 80,000 people being killed out of a population of 300,000.

Xaveir Lombo, an opposition activist who was incarcerated at Black Beach, survived, and fled the country, said: "People are shocked by conditions at Black Beach. They are especially shocked because foreign prisoners are being kept like that. But look at the rest of Equatorial Guinea. It is nothing but a vast prison. People have no human rights and where they can die just as easily."