Secret contacts list at heart of coup plot'

In his opulent Cape Town home, Sir Mark Thatcher faces a bleak future. His wife has taken his children to America, his closest friend has just started a long prison sentence and, in another African jail, a business ally faces execution by firing squad.

Thatcher himself returns to court soon to answer allegations that he was involved with these two men in an attempt to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, a charge he vigorously denies. But the evidence is stacked heavily against him.

One of the conspirators alleges that Thatcher was at the heart of the plot. He claims Thatcher was hoping to make millions from a $250,000 investment, a move aimed at reviving his flagging personal fortunes.

Exclusive access to vital documents and the testimony of key players show that Thatcher, 51, helped fund the mercenary force.

And, for the first time, we reveal the true story behind the audacious plan to reap vast rewards from Equatorial Guinea's fabulously rich oil revenues. The evidence also reveals that Lord Archer and his friend Ely Calil, a London-based businessman, can expect further investigation over allegations that they were involved.

As Thatcher's mother, the former Conservative prime minister Baroness Thatcher, watches anxiously from London, the case against her son is being reinforced by the evidence of men who lost everything in the failed coup attempt. One of them, Nick du Toit, is quite literally fighting for his life.

Although Du Toit faces the prospect of a firing squad with impressive calm, he told the Evening Standard, in an exclusive interview under armed guard in Malabo, capital of Equatorial Guinea, that he had been betrayed by Thatcher's close friend Simon Mann, the Old Etonian ex-SAS officer who planned to lead a band of heavily armed mercenaries into action.

Mann and 69 of his men were arrested in Zimbabwe in March as their plane landed to pick up weapons. He was recently sentenced to seven years' jail in Harare for contravening arms regulations. According to Du Toit, Mann disclosed the names of co-conspirators who had been based in Equatorial Guinea as a vanguard of the mercenary force. It was, Du Toit said, an act of treachery that could cost him his life.

He was brought to our interview shackled and manacled, bearded and bedraggled after seven months in Equatorial Guinea's notorious Black Beach jail. Du Toit said he met Thatcher through Mann, whom he

identified as the main planner of the coup attempt. But he was reluctant to name Thatcher as one of the plotters. Then something extraordinary happened.

As he talked, an official from Equatorial Guinea's Ministry for Security burst into the room with a laptop that belonged to Du Toit. The official demanded that Du Toit open three programmes which had been locked by a secret code. Du Toit was forced to help a computer expert break the codes and when he did, one programme opened with a list of names, headed by Simon Mann, and including individuals who have been linked to the coup plot. High on the list was the name of Mark Thatcher. Next to it was Thatcher's closely guarded personal telephone number. That number, we discovered later, was to provide further evidence of Thatcher's links to key protagonists.

Nothing in the computer, however, disclosed Thatcher's role in the planned coup. That was described to us by another important figure in the affair, Crause Steyl. Like Du Toit, Steyl is a tough South African. He was one of the pilots picked to fly the key planners of the coup in a chartered King 200 twin turbo prop aircraft, registered ZS-NBJ.

He also had another passenger - Severo Moto, the Equatorial Guinea opposition leader who, we have established, was to have set up a new government once the mercenary force had deposed the current president, Teodoro Obiang.

From Steyl's evidence and documents including hotel records, we can reveal that Moto left his home in exile in Madrid and waited in Las Palmas in the Canaries, where he was joined by key figures in the coup plot, London-based businessman Greg Wales and mining expert David Tremain, who is based in South Africa but has a home in Britain. In the first week of March, as Mann and his soldiers of fortune flew to Zimbabwe for their rendezvous with their weapons (or so they thought), Steyl flew Moto and the others to Bamako in Mali. This remote desert city was chosen as the final jumping-off spot for the president-in-waiting. From there he was to have flown to Malabo to establish his new government.

According to Steyl, Thatcher's role was to provide helicopters. In an exclusive interview he said: "I met Mark three or four times. He was a partner in the venture. He put in about $250,000. The money was wired to my company account in various instalments. The helicopters cost about $600 an hour plus $5,000 each for the pilots and $10,000 a month for special insurance."

Thatcher has admitted putting money into Steyl's company, Triple A Aviation, but he has said it was to cover the cost of an air ambulance project. Steyl dismissed this explanation. "He knew what was going on," he said. "I only knew him in the context of the Equatorial Guinea business. I didn't know him before and I haven't met him since." Steyl has agreed to give evidence for the prosecution in South Africa when Thatcher returns to court next month. South Africa, anxious to lose its reputation as a world headquarters for mercenary activity, passed draconian laws against illicit military action. The charges against Thatcher, alleging that he provided logistic support for the coup, carry a 15-year maximum prison sentence. The South African investigators have been given evidence that shows the conspirators expected to be richly rewarded by Moto. Simon Mann was counting on $10 million. Equatorial Guinea is Africa's third biggest oil producer and the country's offshore wells generate huge sums for President Obiang's regime.

Thatcher continues to deny involvement in the attempted coup. But the Evening Standard has seen documents which suggest he may face some tough questions when he comes to defend himself in court. These documents - telephone records - show a flurry of calls between individuals named by the authorities in Equatorial

Guinea as key conspirators.

On 11 March, as Mann and his mercenaries were under arrest in Harare and the plot was unravelling fast, Greg Wales - who has acknowledged his own involvement in a document of which we have a copy - called Thatcher at

6.20am. They spoke for 15 minutes. Wales called Thatcher in the days that followed. They spoke on 12 and 15 March and then again on 23 and 24 March, as Mann was sending out desperate pleas for help from his jail cell.

The telephone records also throw up the name of Ely Calil. Mr Calil, a Lebanese entrepreneur and oil trader based in London, was identified by Equatorial Guinea's prosecutorsas an architect of the coup plot. He has denied the allegation. Despite this, Mr Obiang's government has made an official request for help from Britain in investigating Mr Calil and others.

Another name revealed by the telephone records is that of Lord Archer, the disgraced Tory peer. He was dragged into the affair when it was revealed that a "J.H. Archer" had paid about £74,000 into Simon Mann's business account. Archer's first names are Jeffrey Howard.

He has denied any "prior knowledge" of a plot. In January, on the same day the plotters were meeting at Sandton, outside Johannesburg, Mr Calil called Lord Archer and the pair apparently spoke for 15 minutes. Other calls followed in the run-up to the coup attempt.

Our investigation also reveals that shortly after Simon Mann's arrest, Mr Calil telephoned Mann's wife Amanda no fewer than eight times within an hour. The couple have a large house in Hampshire as well as a home in South Africa. Mann, 51, who made a fortune from various mercenary ventures, is the son of a former England cricket captain and a scion of the Watney brewing dynasty.

Thatcher's business affairs have suffered badly of late. Attempts to establish himself as a front-rank arms dealer failed and a moneylending concern ended badly. His wife, Diane, took their two children to America shortly after his arrest in August amid reports that he, too, had been planning to leave the country. He put their £1.2 million home on the market, although so far it has not attracted a buyer.

When he needed to find £165,000 to cover a bail bond, the money was sent by his mother from London. She has been in frail health and is said to be watching events unfold with concern. It is not known what her son has told her of his role in the coup affair, but even she - always his staunchest supporter - must now know his chequered career has reached its lowest ebb.