The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Obiang's son refuses to testify before Pedraz because his "public commitments" prevent him from traveling

2023-03-07T12:06:55.502Z


He asks to do so by videoconference, alleges that he resides in Equatorial Guinea and advances that, in any case, he will renounce giving testimony


Teodoro Obiang Nguema, President of Equatorial Guinea, during an official act in Malabo on November 8.

In the box, his son Carmelo Ovono Obiang.AFP

Carmelo Ovono Obiang, Secretary of State for the Presidency and son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, tries to evade his face-to-face statement in Spain for the crimes of kidnapping and torture, alleging alleged "public commitments that prevent him from traveling in the coming months due to the political situation and health that the Republic of Equatorial Guinea lives”.

The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz has summoned him to testify on the 28th at the National Court together with Nicolás Obama, Minister of the Interior and Isaac Nguema Endo, Director of Security.

The three have been identified as the perpetrators of the kidnapping and torture of four opponents of the dictator's regime, one of whom died on January 15 in circumstances that have not been clarified.

The defense of Ovono Obiang and Nguema Ondo, two of the three members of the Equatorial Guinean security leadership sued and investigated, proposes that the statement be made by video conference "because it is totally disproportionate to have a senior representative of a government to hold demonstrations.

And he alleges that the permanent residence of both is Equatorial Guinea.

Resident in Spain

In reality, Carmelo Ovono Obiang, alias

Didi

, 44, is married to a Spanish woman, has a daughter, and has been a resident of Spain since 2020. His resident card requires him to live in Spain for more than six months.

He lives in Marbella, although he travels frequently to Malabo, owns homes in Barcelona and Toledo and manages the Spanish company of alleged real estate activities Dereck Edita y Hermanos SL in Malaga.

To obtain the resident certificate, he presented an account at BBVA that was blocked last summer on suspicion of money laundering.

He entered large amounts in 500-euro bills.

Ovono Obiang's lawyer points out that the two defendants are senior officials of the former Spanish colony and anticipates that they will avail themselves of the right not to testify "until this procedural representation has had the opportunity to exercise the right to defense and to comply with the principle of contradiction with respect to protected witnesses who have testified in court without the procedural representatives of the defense being present.”

The main indications against the son of the dictator and the other two heads of Guinean national security are based, among other evidence, on the testimonies of two protected witnesses, one of whom was present during the torture suffered by Spanish opponents Feliciano Efa Mangué and Julio Obama, and the Equatorial Guineans residing in Madrid, Bienvenido Ndong and Martín Obiang.

One of these protected witnesses fled from Equatorial Guinea with the evidence presented at the National Court.

The four were kidnapped in 2019 by deceit in Juva, the capital of South Sudan, transferred to a prison in Equatorial Guinea and tried and sentenced to 60 and 90 years in prison, in a trial without guarantees for an alleged coup d'état. , as reported by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Obama, 61, recently passed away.

Judge Pedraz, the Spanish Government and the European Parliament have unsuccessfully demanded that his body be repatriated to Spain in order to carry out an autopsy.

The refusal of Carmelo Ovono Obiang to come to testify in Spain confirms what the complainants, police investigators and other legal sources predicted last January when Judge Pedraz renounced the police detention of Obiang's son and his taking immediate statement.

On December 29, the agents of the General Information Commissioner who were investigating the case informed the magistrate that the head of Foreign Security of Equatorial Guinea was sleeping in a hotel in Madrid where he was being watched.

Against the discretion of the Prosecutor's Office, the judge ordered that he be given a copy of the complaint and that he appoint a lawyer.

That same morning, Ovono Obiang took a plane to Malabo.

He has not returned despite Spanish soil.

Weeks before, when the agents were waiting for him at the Madrid-Barajas airport, Pedraz had requested his police arrest, transfer to the court and that his mobile phone and any electronic device be confiscated.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-03-07

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z
News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.