|
Costas Georgiou (Grk. Κώστας Γιώργιου,also Anglicized as Kostas Giorgiou; alias "Colonel Callan")
Mercenary executed on July 10, 1976 following the Luanda Trial for activities during the civil war phase of the Angolan War of Independence.
Early Life
British Military Career
Georgiou served as a British paratrooper. Despite later pretensions to the rank of colonel, he remained an enlisted man and never received officer training.
Mercenary Activity
In 1975, Portugal recognized the independence of its former colony of Angola, and acknowledged the Soviet-aligned MPLA faction as the de jure government. The new government sought and received help in the form of Cuban military advisors and combat troops to fight against rival factions, which included the US-backed FNLA. British and American ex-military were recruited by FNLA through contacts in the United Kingdom and United States. CIA involvement in some, but not all, of the recruitment has been alleged.
"Callan," as Georgiou was now styling himself, led these foreigners with varying degrees of military experience, together with a somewhat larger contingent of native Angolan support troops (in this case truck drivers) and fighters, few of whom had any military experience at all. They fought several dramatic engagements, including succesful ambushes of minor MPLA detachments. Still, he repeatedly failed to make contact with strategically significant MPLA or Cuban formations, to say anything of successfully engaging them. According to mercenary David Tomkins, the group spent most of its time foraging for food, usable weapons, and ammunition. Much of this foraging consisted of "raids" on villages where the men would casually walk into town brandishing their weapons, searching for anything of use. Anyone who offered violent resistance would be shot, although Tomkins says in an interview that this was rare.
Trial & Execution
The principal crime for which Georgiou was executed was the slaying of fourteen of his men who had attempted to desert in some of the trucks that were carrying the unit's supplies. They did this after mistakenly firing on one of the other vehicles in their convoy, for which they feared punishment. He was also accused of killing two Angolan civilians, as well as torturing civilians to extract intelligence on enemy troop movements. In addition, fighting as a rebel soldier was itself considered a crime by the prosecuting MPLA authorities.
Georgiou's sister was allowed to visit him during his captivity in Angola. In a BBC interview, she said they spoke mainly about their family and the trial proceedings. They conversed in Greek.
External Links
[1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/28/newsid_2520000/2520575.stm)BBC retrospective for June 28, 1976
[2] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/11/newsid_2510000/2510947.stm)BBC retospective for June 11, 1976
[3] (http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-17/tomkins1.html)Tomkins Interview
| 
