Background
Kauata "Fred" Marafano was born 13 December 1940 on the tiny Pacific island of Rotuma, 350 miles north of Fiji. He grew up in a family of five children. His father was a farmer and also fought for the British during the Second World War.
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Fred Marafano
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He was one of the first Fijians of Rotuman descent to join the SAS. In 1957 he left Rotuma to study at an agricultural college in Navuso, Fiji. At the age of 21 he dropped out of college to join the British Army. He served in the King"s Shropshire Light Infantry, where he became a corporal.
After two years of service he applied to join the British SAS. He was appointed Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year’s Honours of 1983.
In the 90s, when Fred Marafano was already a private security contractor in Sierra Leone, he was recruited by Simon Mann for his private military company known as Executive Outcomes, then participating in Sierra Leone"s war largely concentrated around the so-called "Blood diamond ". By 1997 Executive Outcomes had left Sierra Leone in a conflict which remained in progress.
Marafono left Sierra Leone in December 2006.
