Spanish justice indicated on Friday January 20 that it had requested the repatriation of the body of Julio Obama Mefuman, an opponent of the Equatorial Guinea regime with Spanish nationality and who died in this country where he had been detained since his alleged kidnapping at the end of 2019 in South Sudan. .
A judge from the Madrid High Court of the National Audience, who recently opened an investigation into this kidnapping, demanded the repatriation of the body of the opponent in order to be able to carry out an autopsy, a spokesperson told AFP. of this court, without providing further details.
The opponent would have been tortured
Julio Obama Mefuman, 51, died in the prison of Oveng Azem, in Mongomo, in the east of this small Central African country among the most closed and with the regime among the most authoritarian in the world, affirmed his Movement for the Liberation of the Third Republic of Equatorial Guinea (MLGE3R), in a press release published on Sunday.
Movement in exile in Spain, the MLGE3R, which accuses the Equatorial Guinean regime of having "
tortured
" Julio Obama Mefuman as well as three other opponents arrested at the end of 2019 with him, did not specify the date and circumstances of his death.
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The Equatoguinean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Simeón Oyono Esono Angue, said on Twitter on Monday that the opponent had "
died in a hospital in Mongomo following an illness
".
This death occurred two weeks after the announcement of the opening by the Spanish justice of an investigation into the kidnapping and torture of Julio Obama Mefuman as well as another opponent also of Spanish nationality, Feliciano Efa Mangue.
This procedure targets three relatives of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, including one of his sons, Carmelo Ovono Obiang, head of foreign intelligence.
The three men, presented as senior security officials, are suspected of having organized the kidnapping in South Sudan of these two opponents and two others, Equatorial Guineans, who also lived in Spain at the end of 2019.
World record longevity in power
According to the Spanish daily
El Pais
, which had access to reports from the Spanish police, these four opponents were forcibly repatriated to Equatorial Guinea where they were subjected to repeated sessions of torture - in the presence of the three senior officials targeted by investigation.
A former Spanish colony, Equatorial Guinea has been ruled since 1979 by Teodoro Obiang, 80, who holds the world record for longevity in power for a living head of state, excluding monarchies.
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