The Government asks Equatorial Guinea to clarify the death of the Spanish prisoner opposing Obiang

The President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, during the elections last November in Malabo.SAMUEL OBIANG (AFP)

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned the head of the Delegation of the Embassy of Equatorial Guinea in Spain to ask him to clarify the causes of death of Julio Obama, 61, a Spanish citizen, opponent of the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema, prisoner in a prison in Equatorial Guinea since 2020. Obama was kidnapped and tortured by senior officials of that country, according to a judicial investigation by the National Court.

He has also requested pardon for Feliciano Efa Mangue, the other Spanish opponent sentenced to 70 years for an alleged coup.

The member of the Movement for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea died in a hospital in Mongomo (in the east of the country) where he was admitted on December 23, according to the information provided by the Guinean authorities to the Spanish diplomatic representation in that country.

The Spanish government has also asked the Spanish embassy in Malabo to ask the Guinean Foreign Ministry for more information about the circumstances of Julio Obama's death.

Before his kidnapping in 2019 and imprisonment, Obama, a former Army soldier, lived with his wife and his son in Logroño.

Obama's death occurred days after it emerged that the Spanish Justice was investigating the kidnapping and torture of the deceased and other opponents of Carmelo Ovono Obiang, one of the president's sons, Secretary of State for the Presidency and head of the Service Secret abroad, to the Minister of State, Nicolás Obama Nchama, responsible for Internal Security;

and Isaac Ngmea Endo, Director General of Presidential Security.

According to the testimony given in the case by two protected witnesses, a former prison official who has managed to flee the country, and the prisoners themselves, the three senior officials of the Government of Equatorial Guinea participated in the repeated torture sessions to which they were subjected. months before they were tried for an alleged coup in which Obama was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Official Spanish sources assure this newspaper that the Spanish consul in that country visited the Spanish citizen at this medical center on December 24.

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