Carmelo Ovono Obiang, Secretary of State for the Presidency and son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, did not appear for the videoconference summons to which he was summoned by Judge Santiago Pedraz at the National Court this Tuesday morning, according to legal sources.
Nicolás Obama, Secretary of the Interior, and Isaac Nguema Endo, Director of Security, did not appear when the statement was recorded. The three members of Equatorial Guinea’s security leadership are being identified as suspects in the kidnapping and torture of four opponents of the dictatorial regime, one of whom died in suspicious circumstances on January 15.
The dictator’s son had managed to evade his personal testimony in Spain, in which he claimed “public obligations” preventing him from traveling and the “disproportionate nature of allowing a senior government official to attend demonstrations” so his lawyer. Despite the opposition of the prosecutor Vicente González Mota and the representation of the applicants, the judge had given them the opportunity to declare themselves from their country via video conference. But this morning, Ovono Obiang’s attorney announced they will not appear, and the three have sided with Judge Pedraz.
Possible search and capture order
The non-appearance of the persons being examined is likely to prompt prosecutors and the plaintiffs, the Movement for the Liberation of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea III (MLGE 3R), to ask the judge to declare them in absentia. This situation may lead to the issuance of an international search and arrest warrant given the seriousness of the facts on the basis of which they are being investigated.
Carmelo Ovono Obiang’s refusal to testify to Spain confirms what the complainants, the Movement for the Liberation of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea III (MLGE 3R), police investigators and other legal sources had predicted last January, when Judge Pedraz He waived the police Detention of Obiang’s son and his recording of an immediate statement. They all dared to evade his legal testimony, just as his half-brother Teodorín Obiang did in French courts, where he was convicted of money laundering for illicit assets.
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On December 29, the General Information Commissioner’s agents investigating the case told the magistrate that the head of Equatorial Guinea’s external security was sleeping in a hotel in Madrid where he was being watched. Against the prosecutor’s discretion, the judge ordered that a copy of the complaint be given to him and that a lawyer be appointed. That same morning, Ovono Obiang took a plane to Malabo. It has not returned to weigh Spanish soil.
Weeks earlier, while agents were waiting for him at Madrid-Barajas Airport, Pedraz had requested his arrest by the police, his transfer to the court and the confiscation of his mobile phone and all electronic devices.
Resident in Spain
Despite the fact that the defense of Obiang’s son claims he is not a resident of Spain, Ovono Obiang, Alis Didi, 44, is married to a Spanish woman, has one daughter and has lived in Spain as of 2020. His residence card requires you to live in Spain for more than six months. He lives in Marbella although he travels frequently to Malabo, owns houses in Barcelona and Toledo and runs the Spanish company of alleged real estate activities Dereck Edita y Hermanos SL in Malaga.
The main evidence against the dictator’s son and the other two heads of Guinea’s national security is based, among other things, on the testimonies of two protected witnesses, one of whom was present at the torture of Spanish opponents Feliciano Efa Mangué and Julio Obama and those living in Madrid Equatorial Guineans Bienvenido Ndong and Martín Obiang. One of these protected witnesses fled Equatorial Guinea with the evidence presented to the National Court.
The four were kidnapped by fraud in Juva, the capital of South Sudan, in 2019, transferred to a prison in Equatorial Guinea and tried in a trial without guarantees over an alleged coup and sentenced to 60 and 90 years in prison. as reported by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Obama, 61, recently passed away. Judge Pedraz, the Spanish government and the European Parliament have unsuccessfully requested that his body be transported to Spain for an autopsy.