Pedraz requests the repatriation of the body of the opponent who died in Equatorial Guinea to perform an autopsy

Teodoro Obiang, President of Equatorial Guinea, last December in an official act.

(Photo by AFP)- (AFP)

Santiago Pedraz, head of the Investigating Court number five of the National Court, has requested the General Directorate of Consular Affairs to demand the preservation and repatriation to Spain from Equatorial Guinea of ​​the corpse of Julio Obama, 61, a Spanish opponent imprisoned in a Mongomo prison, and who died on January 15 under unexplained circumstances.

The transfer of the body would make it easier for an autopsy to be carried out to determine the causes of his death.

An investigation led by the magistrate maintains that Obama and three other members of an opposition movement to the regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema were kidnapped, tortured and tried without guarantees for an alleged coup against the leader.

Pedraz also asks the agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to inform him "of the state of health and whereabouts of the other three victims" included in the investigation proceedings.

They are Feliciano Efa Mangue, 43, and Equatorial Guineans residing in Madrid, Martin Obiang Mbasogo, 45, and Bienvenido Ndong Ondo, 43. The three, along with Julio Obama, were kidnapped by deceit in Juba (Sudan del Sur), taken to Malabo on Obiang's presidential plane and sentenced to between 60 and 90 years in prison in a trial disputed by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

The judge's request responds to the "urgent" request of the General Police Information Station, the unit investigating the case, that the body be preserved and repatriated as soon as possible for forensic examination.

The prosecutor in the case, Vicente González Mota, has also supported this requirement.

The Equatorial Guinean authorities have released a death certificate stating that Obama died of pulmonary tuberculosis and other illnesses.

The document ensures that from the prison where he had been serving a sentence since 2020 he was transferred to the Virgen de Guadalupe Clinic and "referred to the Mongomo Provincial Hospital to immediately start his treatment."

There, according to that certificate, he stayed for a week and "because of the clinical worsening he was sent to the La Paz de Bata hospital, where he stayed for a week."

The certificate suggests that, despite his seriousness, he was discharged and returned to the hospital very weak, dying twenty-four hours later.

The official date of his death is on the 15th at 12:30 p.m.

The Government has asked Equatorial Guinea to clarify the death of the Spanish opponent and has requested pardon for Feliciano Efa Mangue, also sentenced to 90 years in prison.

This week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the head of the Embassy Delegation in Spain to express its concern about the fate of the prisoners and ask him to investigate the facts.

Julio Obama, a member of the Movement for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea III Republic (MLGE 3R), remained a prisoner in a Mongomo prison in a tiny underground cell, slept on a cement bed, without natural light or air, and was fed with food in poor condition, according to the eyewitnesses who testified in the case that is being followed in the National Court.

Among other tortures,

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