For greater than two years, the federal government of Teodoro Obiang has not allowed the Spanish ambassador in Equatorial Guinea to go to the three members of the Equatorial Guinean opposition – one with Spanish nationality and two with long-term residence in Madrid – allegedly kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by his son Carmelo Ovono Obiang, Secretary of State of the Presidency and answerable for exterior safety.
Since then, all makes an attempt by the Spanish diplomatic illustration in Malabo to seek out out the well being standing and whereabouts of the kidnapped have been in useless, in accordance with official sources. Neither the repeated requests of the previous ambassador Alfonso Barnuevo (2020-2023) nor these of his substitute, Francisco Javier Conde, present consultant of the diplomatic legation, have been profitable. They’ve solely obtained silence from the dictator.
The final time Barnuevo visited the 44-year-old Spaniard Feliciano Efa, one of many kidnapped, was on March 7, 2022, in accordance with his relations. This go to passed off two years after the earlier one, which passed off on March 9, 2020.
An official diplomatic supply has specified that the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, by the Spanish Embassy, “recurringly requests the authorities of Equatorial Guinea to grant a consular go to to this prisoner of Spanish nationality and carries it out every time it’s permitted.” That’s, it has visited solely one of many three kidnapped individuals twice in additional than 4 years. The opposite two kidnapped individuals, Martin Obiang Ondo and Bienvenido Ndong, are long-term residents of Madrid, however should not have Spanish nationality.
Since 2022, the Equatorial Guinean authorities haven’t licensed visits or supplied particulars about his situation or whereabouts. A confidential report by Xavier Martí, director common of Spaniards Overseas, addressed to the brokers of the Common Police Info Fee investigating the case, describes how diplomatic efforts have fallen on deaf ears. “Our ambassador in Malabo has repeatedly raised this situation with the Minister of Overseas Affairs, with Obiang himself and with the vp (his son Teodorín Nguema Obiang),” the doc explains.
The authorities of the previous colony even denied realizing that the kidnapped individuals had been in a jail of their nation when their relations reported their disappearance in Spain in 2019. The opponents had been kidnapped by trickery in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, and brought to Equatorial Guinea in one in every of Teodoro Obiang’s presidential planes. A technique just like that used with 34 different dissidents kidnapped since 1997. There they had been tortured, tried by a army courtroom and sentenced to between 60 and 90 years in jail for an alleged coup try.
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The request of the Spanish Authorities and of José Manuel Albares, Minister of Overseas Affairs, to ship to Spain the physique of Julio Obama, 61 years outdated, one other of the kidnapped individuals who died in circumstances that stay unclear, has not been heeded both. Albares made this request in February 2023 to Simeón Oyono Esono, his Equatorial Guinean counterpart, throughout a summit in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). The consequence was similar to the request of the European Parliament in an settlement adopted unanimously by all its teams: silence as the reply.
Silence earlier than the UN
Equatorial Guinea additionally fails to answer the United Nations’ requests concerning the whereabouts and well being of the kidnapped individuals. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances opened an investigation into the case in 2023 and has unsuccessfully contacted the Equatorial Guinean authorities. Of their recordsdata, consulted by this newspaper, the three are listed as “disappeared.” Santiago Pedraz, the decide of the Nationwide Court docket investigating the occasions, has summoned Manuela Carmena and Soledad Villagra, members of the Committee on Arbitrary Detentions, in addition to the previous UN rapporteur in opposition to Torture Manfred Novack, to testify.
The investigator has issued a European Investigation Order to Greece to take testimony from the pilots of Obiang’s presidential aircraft, Georgios Kappos and Evangelos Kazalis. Each piloted the aircraft that took the kidnapped individuals to Equatorial Guinea.
Together with Carmelo Ovono Obiang, Nicolas Obama, Minister of the Inside, and Isaac Nguema Endo, Director Common of Safety, are additionally being investigated for terrorism offences. Obiang’s son fled Spain hours after the Justice of the Peace ordered the police handy over to him the criticism that the victims’ relations had filed in opposition to him. The Felony Division of the Nationwide Court docket ordered Pedraz to situation an arrest warrant for all three.
