"This is the most wonderful homecoming I could ever have imagined," he said in the statement read out by a spokesman, adding that he was "hugely grateful" to President Teodora Obiang Nguema for pardoning him.

"It's the best, best early Christmas present my family and I could ever possibly have imagined," the statement added.

"I am especially looking forward to meeting my son Arthur, who was born a few months after I left the country and who consequently I have never seen," it continued.

Mann said he had spent much of the last "tough" five and half years in solitary confinement.

"I do now need time to adjust and I would ask that you respect my privacy and that of my family during this period."

Mann, a 57-year-old former member of the British elite forces, was jailed for 34 years for his role in the failed 2004 coup plot in the oil-rich west African state.

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