Manndela

Champions of human rights all over the world were celebrating earlier this week as mercenary Simon Mann was released from prison in Equatorial Guinea.

In 2004, we looked on aghast as Mann was both arrested and jailed in Zimbabwe, en route to heroically overthrow President Teodoro Obiang's government for money and power. After spending three years in a Zimbabwean prison, Mann was secretly extradited to Equatorial Guinea to face trial, during which he courageously praised Obiang's brutal totalitarian regime.

Having languished for the last two years in Malabo's notorious Black Beach prison, Mann - who reportedly made millions in the 1990s from shipping arms to Sierra Leone, allegedly in violation of a UN embargo - was finally granted a pardon by Obiang on Monday, November 2, and released the following day. Although he missed out on the £15m that he would have been paid for nobly mounting a successful coup d'état in the extremely oil-rich country, his story is expected to net him almost as much. Mann's politically convenient release has been hailed a victory for human rights in a country with little regard for such things.

Prior to his arrest in 2004, Simon Mann killed people for money.