Costas Georgiou

Costas Georgiou (Greek: Κώστας Γιώργιου, also Anglicized as Kostas Giorgiou; alias "Colonel Callan") (1951 – 10 July 1976) was an ethnic Greek Cypriot, British mercenary executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial for activities during the civil war phase of the Angolan War of Independence.

Georgiou was born on Cyprus in 1951, when the island was still a British Crown colony. His family moved to London in the early 1960s.

Georgiou joined the British Army and served, at first with distinction, in 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment in Northern Ireland. He was credited as being one of the best marksmen in the unit. He later became involved with other paratroopers in an armed robbery on a Post Office on 18 February 1972. Georgiou was eventually sentenced to five years in prison.

Despite later claiming to have been a colonel, Georgiou's highest British Army rank attained was that of corporal, and he never received officer training. Others state Georgiou was a private soldier.

In 1975, Portugal recognised the independence of its former colony of Angola, and acknowledged the Soviet-aligned People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) as the de jure government. The new government sought and received help in the form of Cuban military advisors, combat troops and material to fight against rival factions, which included the US-backed National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the South African-backed National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which received some US funding but no actual military aid. At the same time, British and American ex-military were recruited by FNLA through Private Military Companies (PMC; also known as PMIs, for Private Military Industry) in the United Kingdom and United States. Funding was provided by various NATO-member intelligence organisations, including the American Central Intelligence Agency and the French Secret Service.

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