Teodorín Obiang planned to "eliminate" opponents in Spain, according to a former civil guard who dealt with the Equatoguinean regime

Salomón Abeso, in a surveillance of detectives in 2018 in Madrid. Months later the Guinean opponent suffered an attack in London.

Senior officials of the Government of Equatorial Guinea planned to assassinate members of the opposition in exile residing in Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom, as confessed to the Police a former civil guard to whom they offered to advise and instruct the security forces and bodies of the African country. The account of this witness, to which EL PAÍS has had access, assures that the plan was allegedly hatched by Teodoro Nguema Obiang, Teodorín, vice president of the Government and son of the dictator, and was going to be executed by two hitmen.

Francisco Javier G. C., a former civil guard instructor of courses and seminars of self-defense and security, has testified before the Police as a witness in the case that is instructed in the National Court against three senior officials of the dome of Interior of the former Spanish colony for the kidnapping and torture of four Equatoguinean opponents residing in Madrid.

The witness said that he had maintained contact with senior officials of the Government of Equatorial Guinea since February 2015, when Crisantos Obama Ondo, then representative of that country to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), offered him contracts to advise and instruct the security forces of his country. During a meeting in Rome, he was informed of Teodoro Nguema Obiang's plan to post slanders against opposition members in exile on social media, and was given the order to "eliminate" them.

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According to Francisco Javier G. C., the leader of Equatorial Guinea expressly mentioned as targets Severo Moto Nsé, resident in Madrid and president of the Progress Party; Carlos Abaga Ayingono, who lives in Germany and chairs the National Alliance for Democratic Restoration; and Salomón Abeso Ndong, resident in London and president of the Coalition for the Democratic Restoration of Equatorial Guinea (CORED). "These must be eliminated," says the former civil guard who was told.

Subsequently, in May 2018, and after new contacts with members of the regime and also of the opposition, he learned through people close to the embassy of Equatorial Guinea in Madrid of a plan against the opponents. This plan consisted, according to his testimony, in the hiring of two hitmen, one Equatoguinean and one Moroccan, to travel to Spain and "take care of them." This newspaper has not been able to locate Crisantos Obama, until a few weeks ago ambassador to Ethiopia, to obtain his testimony.

Warnings fulfilled

The former agent has delivered to the police the messages he sent through Messenger to the threatened to put them on notice, and has told how he warned Salomón Abeso, president of CORED, of the danger. A few weeks later, on October 4, 2018, two gunmen machine-gunned Abeso from a motorcycle as he left his home in London. His son was shot and wounded. Three years earlier, in 2015, two Colombian hitmen had tried to assassinate the opponent Germán Pedro Tomo in Alcorcón (Madrid) and mistakenly stabbed his brother several times, confusing him with him. "We come to catch you one by one. You are not going to meet God, but Obiang," read the messages that opponents received on their mobile phones.

Weeks earlier, Francisco Micha Obama, a very active member of CORED, was kidnapped in Togo along with Italian citizen Fulgencio Obiang Esono, transferred to Equatorial Guinea and convicted, without any legal guarantees, for an alleged coup d'état.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 'Teodorín', son of the country's president, on June 24, 2013.Jerome Leroy

On December 21, 2015, the former civil guard Francisco Javier G. C. had again knowledge of the displacement of three hitmen to Spain to attack opponents. The witness has provided the photographs and identities of the alleged killers. The police have collected several complaints from opponents for threats presented in Spain.

These events coincide in time with the hiring of fifteen detective offices in Madrid by a senior official of the Obiang government to investigate the most active members of the opposition.

"The executing hand"

The statement of this witness points out as the protagonist of these plans Carmelo Ovono Obiang, Didi, 44, Secretary of State of the Presidency and one of the dictator's sons. "I have heard his name in several of the conversations in relation to the hitmen sent by Teodorín affirming that Didi was the organizer of the hitmen, being considered as the executing hand of the regime," he states in his testimony.

Didi is being investigated in the National Court, along with two other senior officials of the Interior Ministry, for the kidnapping in South Sudan and torture of four opponents of the Obiang regime. All resided in Madrid and traveled to Juba, the capital, through deception. One of them, Julio Obama, 61, died last January without clarifying the circumstances of his death. None of the three investigated has lent himself to testify before Judge Santiago Pedraz and prosecutor Vicente González Mota has asked the magistrate to issue a search and arrest warrant.

The General Police Information Commissariat says in a report submitted to the court that it is investigating the "death in strange circumstances" of Bachirou Baba Ngolbe, who according to the victims of the kidnapping in Juba, had a fundamental role in the deception. The agents suspect that this man would have been killed by poisoning in Yaoundé (Cameroon). His alleged death would have occurred after it was made public that he had requested a large sum of money from the representatives of the embassy of Equatorial Guinea in Cameroon as consideration for having helped kidnap the four opponents.

For the Police, all these events respond to a "systematic and organized plan of crimes and kidnappings" of the Government of Teodoro Obiang Nguema against members of the opposition in exile.

Investigación@elpais.es

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