Super-rich oil trader was implicated in bungled coup plot in Equatorial Guinea

Ely Calil, who has died aged 72 after falling down the stairs at his house in London, was a spectacularly rich oil trader whose name – or nickname – kept cropping up in the extraordinary story of a bungled plot in 2004 to topple the government of Equatorial Guinea.

The country, the third largest oil producer in Africa, has been ruled for nearly 40 years by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who seized power in a coup in 1979 and has been accused of corruption, human rights abuses and ruthlessly suppressing political opposition. Critics depict him as a tyrant with a penchant for eating human flesh.

The first the outside world knew of the operation to depose him was in March 2004, when news broke of the detention of a planeload of mercenaries on an ageing Boeing 727 at the airport of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

Simon Mann, an Old Etonian former army officer turned mercenary, who was identified as the leader of the group, claimed he and his colleagues were en route to guard a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it soon became clear they were in Harare to pick up a consignment of small arms to be used in the operation to replace Obiang with a Madridbased opposition leader, Severo Moto.

Details then emerged of a conspiracy – it became known as the ‘‘Wonga Plot’’ – that could have come from a Frederick Forsyth thriller. Mann was said to have been persuaded to spearhead a scheme organised by a shadowy group of businessmen to seize control of Equatorial Guinea’s oil production of 450,000 barrels a day.

Calil was linked to the plot when police intercepted a letter the desperate Mann wrote from jail in Harare to his wife, in which he asked for ‘‘Smelly’’ (subsequently revealed as his nickname for Calil) and ‘‘Scratcher’’ (his nickname for Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher) to come to his aid, and said that he needed ‘‘a big splodge of wonga’’ to help get him out.

A signed confession by Mann placed Calil at the centre of the plot. He claimed he and Calil had discussed the situation in Equatorial Guinea and that Calil was supporting Moto’s party of exiles. Further details emerged in a confession by Mann’s alleged accomplice, Nick du Toit, from a jail cell in Equatorial Guinea. Du Toit claimed he had been promised US$5 million at meetings with Calil and Moto, and had helped to recruit more than 60 veterans of African civil wars to take part in the planned coup.

In September 2004, the Equatorial Guinean Government attempted to sue Calil for allegedly providing $750,000 to finance the plot. Calil’s solicitor rebutted the claims as ‘‘completely false and without foundation’’.

Mann and his colleagues were put on trial in Zimbabwe, and in August 2004, Mann was