The National Court and the United Nations investigate the whereabouts of those kidnapped by Melchor Esono Edjo

Melchor Esono's gang: The National Court and the United Nations investigate the whereabouts of those kidnapped by Melchor Esono's gang. An Investigative Court orders the arrest of the accused.

For ten months, the Foreign Ministry has not received a response from Equatorial Guinea regarding the fate of the missing people kidnapped by a son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Source: OCCRP Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting - Last News. June 6, 2024

The United Nations Working Group on Forced or Involuntary Disappearances has opened an investigation and asked the Government of Equatorial Guinea about the whereabouts of the four members of the Equatoguinean opposition, two Spaniards and two residents of Madrid, kidnapped, tortured and imprisoned in the former Spanish colony, as this organization has communicated to their families. The case was opened in May and has also been communicated to the Government of South Sudan, where the four opponents were kidnapped.

The United Nations body has requested information from the relatives of the missing. And it addressed the case at its last meeting last September in Geneva. In response to the request of the defense of Obiang's son, who is being investigated in the National Court for kidnapping and torture of the four opponents, Judge Santiago Pedraz has prevented the plaintiffs' lawyer, Aitor Martínez, from presenting a complaint to the United Nations. copy of the case. The Prosecutor's Office opposed the magistrate's decision.

For ten months, the Spanish Government has been unaware of the fate of the opponents. Since January, Equatorial Guinea has responded with silence to the repeated questions that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Spanish ambassador in Malabo have sent it, as reflected in official documents from the General Directorate of Spaniards Abroad to which it has had access. access EL PAÍS. The personal efforts of Spanish diplomacy before the dictator Teodoro Obiang and that of his son Teodorín, vice president, have also not yielded results.

In January, the death in unclear circumstances in Mongomo, a Guinean town bordering Gabon, of Spaniard Julio Obama, 61, one of the four kidnapped opponents, was revealed. Since then, Foreign Affairs has not achieved a single answer regarding the fate of Feliciano Efa Mangue, 43, who holds dual nationality, and the Equatorial Guineans Martín Obiang Mbasogo, 45, and Bienvenido Ndong Ondo, 43, both with long residence in Spain, prisoners in Equatorial Guinea. The four were kidnapped by deception in 2019 in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, taken to the African president's plane, tried and sentenced to sentences of between 60 and 90 years for an alleged coup d'état.

Xavier Martí, general director of Spaniards Abroad, describes in different reports sent to the police investigating the case the efforts of Spanish diplomacy, and concludes that they have not received a response from the authorities of Equatorial Guinea. The agents of the General Information Commissariat report in their communications that "despite the multiple efforts made at the highest level by Spanish diplomacy, there is a notable lack of information and commitment on the part of the Guinean authorities." And they highlight that the request of the Spanish Government and the Foreign Minister himself, José Manuel Albares, to send the mortal remains of Julio Obama, has not been attended to either. Albares claimed it in February in Addis Ababa during an interview with his Equatorial Guinean counterpart Simeón Oyono Esono.

The repeated requests of the Spanish ambassador in Malabo, Alfonso Barnuevo, to know the state of health and the whereabouts of the three opponents have also not received a response. The last time the diplomat was authorized to visit the Spaniard Feliciano Efa in prison was 19 months ago, on March 9, 2020. No visits have been authorized, nor has information been provided about his condition or whereabouts. The dictator's response so far is silence. “Our ambassador in Malabo has raised this issue repeatedly with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with the Minister of Justice, with President Obiang himself and with the Vice President,” says Xavier Martí in a confidential document. In the same letter addressed to the police, the director general highlights that in the first meeting that the ambassador had with the minister "he indicated that he did not know about the matter.

EL PAÍS - Madrid - Source/published:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S5qKsfCCcJDsv_YORVFGJuuKCFmYpBzF/view
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Recopilado por The International Report