Judge Santiago Pedraz has authorized that Carmelo Ovono Obiangone of the sons of the dictator of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang, declared by videoconference before the National Court.
This is stated in a car dated March 7, to which EL ESPAÑOL has had access. Therefore, Ovono will be interrogated the next day 28at 10 in the morning, through the Cisco Meeting platform.
Pedraz investigates the dictator’s son for the alleged kidnapping and subsequent torture of two Guineans nationalized as Spanish. They are Julio Obama and Feliciano Efa. The first died last January, under strange circumstances, in a prison in the former Spanish colony.
[El paracaidista español que acusa de torturas al hijo de Obiang: “La sangre salía por todas partes”]
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has demanded, with little success, that the Equatoguinean authorities clarify his death. Pedraz has also requested the repatriation of the body, which has not yet occurred.
Both Obama and Efa belonged to the Movement for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea Third Republic (MLGE3R), contrary to the Government of the country, which the Obiang control with an iron fist. Both They accused Carmelo Ovono Obiang of kidnapping him in South Sudan, using a government plane.
A Guinean Government plane and a photo of Carmelo Ovono, son of Teodoro Obiang.
For these events, Judge Pedraz is investigating Ovono and two other senior officials from the Equatorial Guinean security leadership: nicholas obamaMinister in charge of National Security of Equatorial Guinea, and Isaac Nguemadeputy director of the Security of the Presidency.
In addition to being the son of the president of the country, Carmelo Ovono is the Secretary of State for Foreign Security; in charge, therefore, of Intelligence abroad.
Pedraz summoned all of them to testify on March 28. At first, he ordered that the interrogations be in person, at the headquarters of the Court, in Madrid. However, Ovono and Nguema’s lawyer requested that they be held by videoconference.
“Their public commitments prevent travel to Spain in the coming months due to the political and health situation in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea,” argued his lawyer, in a letter consulted by EL ESPAÑOL.
“Already with notice, they are going to take advantage of their right not to declare,” advanced the lawyer. “It is totally disproportionate to have a high representative of a government come to hold demonstrations when it is feasible to hold it through a videoconference system,” he argued.
Finally, Judge Pedraz has granted them to testify by videoconference. However, the defense of the MLGE3R has appealed this decision to try that the statements are in person, at the headquarters of the Court.
The defense of the Liberation Movement, in addition, claims that, after the statements, a hearing of precautionary measures be held, in which they can request, for example, the entry into provisional detention of one of those investigated.
Obama’s death
Julio Obama died under suspicious circumstances in a prison in the African country. He had been a legionnaire in the Spanish Army and belonged to the Movement for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea Third Republic (MLGE3R), contrary to the Government of the country.
As stated in the summary of this case, to which this newspaper has had access, Julio Obama and Feliciano Efa, accused Carmelo Ovono Obiang of having kidnapped them in 2019 in South Sudan, using a government plane. Once detained, they would have been forcibly displaced to Guinea and subjected to torture in the Oveng Azem prison, where the first of them died on January 15.
Both had Spanish ID and were members of the Armed Forces. Obama was a corporal of the Army in the Legion. Efa He was part of the Parachute Brigade and became displaced on a mission in Lebanon.
[Albares exige a Obiang que aclare cómo murió el español que acusó al hijo del dictador de torturas]
A police report included in the summary claimed that the three defendants traveled, “along with the kidnapped, in the presidential plane used for (…) the operation.”
In the statement in which the MLGE3R confirmed the death of Obama, the political organization pointed to a possible retaliation. Once the complaint was communicated, Carmelo Ovono —the judge chose not to order his arrest—he returned to his country.
“From the Movement, we already warned that the return to Equatorial Guinea of Carmelo Ovono Obiang, in total impunity, would entail a reprisal against our militants, Spanish citizenshaving warned all the authorities, judicial and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of this point, without any statement being made against the Obiang regime that could be anticipated a revenge that, by all accounts, would take place“, the letter read.
In addition, in their reports, the Police accuse Ovono of exercising a “systematic” repression against opponents of his father’s regime abroad. The National Police even assures that it created a front company in Spain to camouflage the surveillance and monitoring that it coordinated against political dissidents residing in our country.
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