On the day Simon Mann was sent down for 34 years, a sentence that would have left him to die in a solitary cell in Black Beach prison, all the diplomatic chatter was of a possible pardon.

He’d cooperated with President Obiang’s investigators. He’d pointed the finger at those he claimed were behind the coup plot and the countries he claimed had backed their plan.

The attorney general had said in court that their star prisoner should be commended for his openness. And why wouldn’t he? Mann knew the only chance he had now was a “get out of jail free” card.

I got into Black Beach the day after the verdict to talk to Mann. It was one of my most bizarre days as a reporter. Myself and my cameraman Soren Munk were driven past the dust courtyard full of bedraggled inmates looking bored and very skinny, and into a pristine, purpose-built courtroom.

It had been built for the trial but deemed not secure enough should someone decide to silence Mann before he confessed. The security minister had escorted us to meet Mann. He wanted to show us how well the westerner was being treated. We were told he had a step machine in his cell for exercise, and books were provided for entertainment.

But the real killer was the buffet lunch the minister had laid on for us. In prison. Not just any prison. This was one of Africa’s most notorious jails. Stories of torture and death in custody were common here. And there we were, being offered croquettes and a glass of Merlot in close proximity to the torture cells.

Mann shuffled in, his ankles shackled, his hernia still distressing him. He wouldn’t be drawn on the chances of a pardon. If he’d been promised early release, he wasn’t saying.

He was still angry. Years in incarceration in Harare and months of interrogation in Malabo hadn’t dimmed his fury that his co-conspirators had left him to take the heat for all of them. If he ever got out he was going to go after them, make no mistake.

He was far from a broken man. Maybe his hefty sentence hadn’t quite sunk in, maybe his SAS training was still ingrained, or maybe he believed the Equatorial Guineans would stay true to their word and reward him for spilling the beans.

The rumour mill out of EG has been rife for over a month that President Obiang was about to release his most famous prisoner on compassionate grounds. Mann has had two hernia operations since his trial. His health is said to be good, but the last thing the president wants is for his condition to deteriorate whilst in prison.

Just before his trial the president had assured us that Equatorial Guinea had turned a corner. He was no longer the tyrannical leader who pocketed vast personal wealth for him and his family from the country’s huge oil reserves whilst his people lived without electricity and running water. He boasted how Mann’s trial was to be witnessed by a free press and claimed that human rights had improved.

A pardon is the president’s last roll of the dice concerning this coup plotter. He wants to show how he’s a benevolent leader who feels compassion for this 57-year-old former soldier who has repented.

After sentencing him to 34 years the chief judge had told Mann he was also forbidden from returning to Equatorial Guinea.

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