The Interior Commission of the Congress has unanimously approved on Tuesday a parliamentary initiative of Unidas Podemos that urges the Government of Pedro Sánchez to get more involved in the release of the four opponents of the regime of Equatorial Guinea, two of them with Spanish nationality, who were kidnapped in South Sudan in November 2019 and transferred to Guinean prisons, where one died. These facts are investigated by the National Court. The initiative, defended by Deputy Enrique Santiago, calls on the Spanish Government to promote "police cooperation at the EU level" to "pursue the criminal organization" of the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema before the verification that it is following opposing people in different European countries.
The Non-Law Proposition (PNL, parliamentary initiative with which it is intended that the Chamber express its position on a specific issue, but which is not binding on the Government) recalled that two of the kidnapped opponents, Feliciano Efa Mangue and Julio Obama Mefuman, had Spanish nationality and that the other two, Martín Obiang Ondo Mbasogo and Bienvenido Ndong Ondo, They had resided in our country for a long time and were under protection. The four were tricked into moving at the end of 2019 from Madrid to Juba, in South Sudan, where their trail was lost. Last January it was learned that Obama Mefuman, a former soldier of the Spanish Army and who lived with his wife and son in Logroño, had died in a Guinean prison.
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Equatorial Guinea opens investigation into Obiang's son for torture to avoid arrest by Spain
According to the investigation opened by the judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz, all of them were transferred from South Sudan to Equatorial Guinea and, once there, subjected to repeated sessions of torture after being tried without any guarantees and sentenced to 90 years in prison each for an alleged coup d'état. Eyewitnesses who have testified in the case claim that the deceased opponent had been held in a tiny cell in Mongomo prison, where he slept on a cement bed, without natural light or air, and fed spoiled food.
Judge Pedraz is investigating Carmelo Ovono Obiang, one of the president's sons who is also Secretary of State for the Presidency and head of the Secret Service abroad; the Minister of State, Nicolás Obama Nchama, responsible for Homeland Security; and Isaac Ngmea Endo, Director General of Presidential Security. Pedraz tried to question Obiang's son about these events last March, but he did not appear.
In his speech in defense of the parliamentary initiative, Enrique Santiago has denounced that Equatorial Guinea "is experiencing a serious repression against the opposition" and recalled that the investigations of the Spanish police have determined that these kidnappings of people opposed to the Obiang regime for their subsequent transfer to this country and their torture is "a criminal activity that has been carried out in Spain, but also in other European countries." The leader of Unidas Podemos has insisted that those responsible for the "criminal organization" that perpetrate these acts "are, without a doubt, part of the structures of the State."
The approved Non-Legislative Proposal also urges the Government to request the Obiang regime "respect for the right to life and physical integrity of all detainees," as well as to release the three opponents who are still alive and clarify what happened to Obama Mefuman, for whom it also demands the repatriation of the body. Santiago has insisted that the Equatoguinean authorities "violate the human rights of the opposition, but also violate Spanish sovereignty by carrying out illegal activities in Spain" by its officials.
The initiative has had the favorable vote of the 36 deputies present in the committee, although the arguments put forward by the different groups to explain their support have not been the same. The representatives of the PP, Pablo Hispán, and Vox, Pedro Fernández, have criticized during their interventions the alleged passivity of the Government of Sánchez and, in particular, of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, for which the party of Santiago Abascal has asked for the reprobation.