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Eq. Guinea: Mercenary Trial Was Unfair, Legal Observers Say

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  • Eq. Guinea: Mercenary Trial Was Unfair, Legal Observers Say

    AllAfrica.com
    Dec 1 2004

    Equatorial Guinea: Mercenary Trial Was Unfair, Legal Observers Say


    UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

    December 1, 2004
    Dakar

    Specialists in international law and human rights who observed the
    recent trial of alleged coup plotters and mercenaries in Equatorial
    Guinea said on Wednesday that it had been conducted unfairly and in
    breach of international conventions.

    Lengthy prison sentences were handed down by a court in the capital
    Malabo last Friday against 20 people, 11 of them foreigners.

    All were convicted of plotting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang
    Nguema by helping to prepare an abortive invasion of the oil-rich
    West African nation by South African mercenaries .

    Marise Castro, who observed the proceedings for Amnesty
    International, told IRIN by telephone from London that "it was not in
    our view a fair trial."

    Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the London-based International Bar
    Association which also sent an observer to the hearings, said "the
    trial fell short of international fair trial standards."

    Five South Africans and six Armenians were found guilty of
    involvement in the failed coup against President Teodoro Obiang
    Nguema and were sentenced to between 14 and 34 years in jail. Two
    Equatorial Guineans who appeared in court received lighter sentences.

    Castro said the 15 foreign nationals arrested on 8 March in the
    capital Malabo - one of whom died in custody nine days later - had
    been held "day and night since their arrest in handcuffs and (ankle)
    shackles that weren't even removed to go to the toilet."

    "That in itself is torture," the Amnesty observer said.

    Castro added that the prisoners had been deprived of adequate
    medicine and food during their eight months in detention and had not
    been allowed proper access to their families,

    Ellis said the court's refusal to take into consideration allegations
    of torture by the defendants and their lawyers was "a fundamental
    breach of internarional law."

    Former South African soldier Nick du Toit, the alleged leader of the
    group and the sole defendant to have initially confessed to a role in
    a conspiracy, said his confession had been obtained by torture. The
    defendants said they had signed statements under duress.

    "But the court just ignored that," Ellis said. "That is inconsistent
    with international law. A court must record such an allegation and
    order an investigation if necessary."

    Castro quoted one of the defence lawyers as saying "the defendants
    still had marks on their bodies."

    Two of the defendants said in court that German national, Gerhardt
    Merz, also arrested in March, had died in front of them as a result
    of torture in Black Beach prison. The authorities said he died of
    cerebral malaria.

    Ellis said the government of Equatorial Guinea also violated
    international law by failing to notify defendants of the charges
    during the pre-trial period and then denying them access to legal
    counsel until three days before the trial began last August.

    Both the IBA and Amnesty International criticized the court's failure
    to provide professional interpretors and translations of statements
    both during the investigation and during the hearings. These were
    conducted in Spanish, the official language of Equatorial Guinea.

    The small country of 500,00 people consists of Bioko, a mountainous
    volcanic island formally known as Fernando Poo, and a nearby block of
    jungle-covered territory on the African continent. It was ruled by
    Spain until independence in 1968.

    Castro said some of the defendants' claims of torture "were not even
    translated into Spanish by the interpretor, who was biased. " She
    noted that he was the Attorney General's official interpretor.

    The Amnesty observer also noted that one of the South African
    defendants in court spoke only Portuguese. The court was not aware of
    this and had not provided an interpretor, she added. A Russian
    interpretor was provided for the Armenian defendants. A delegation
    from Yerevan is currently in Equatorial Guinea discussing their fate.

    Castro and Ellis both lamented that the prosecution had failed to
    present any evidence to substantiate the charges, bar the defendants'
    own statements.

    "Weapons produced by the prosecution were shown as examples of the
    type of guns they intended to buy in Zimbabwe," Castro said.

    She said no warrants had been issued for the arrest of the accused
    and their statements had been taken by the attorney general, not by
    investigating magistrate as prescribed by the country's own legal
    system.

    The IBA stressed the fact that the court had broken Equatorial
    Guinea's own judicial rules by deciding two weeks ago to also place
    on trial nine exiled opposition leaders in absentia alongside the
    original defendants.

    It was unclear whether any of these individuals who were tried in
    their absence had been informed of the charges against them and
    whether any effort had been made to bring them before the court,
    Ellis said.

    Severo Moto, the Spanish-based leader of a government-in-exile, was
    sentenced to 63 years in jail at the trial. It was the third time
    that a court in Equatorial Guinea had convicted him of political
    offences and imposed a prison sentence on Moto in his absence

    The accused were found guilty of preparing the way for an abortive
    mercenary invasion last March by a planeload of mercenaries who were
    intercepted in Zimbabwe on their way to Malabo.

    The plane, carrying 67 mainly South African mercenaries, was
    prevented from reaching Equatorial Guinea after it was detained
    during a stopover in Harare to pick up weapons.

    Although many of the defendants in the trial in Malabo were sentenced
    to long prison terms, the court ignored prosecution calls for the
    death sentence to be imposed against du Toit, the alleged leader of a
    mercenary group already placed inside in the country, and Moto, the
    exiled opposition leader who would allegedly have become president
    had the coup succeeded.

    Obiang, the present head of state, has been widely accused of
    corruption and human rights abuse. He has ruled Equatorial Guinea
    since he deposed and killed his uncle, Macias Nguema, in a 1979 coup,
    accumulating considerable personal wealth from oil revenues which
    have poured in over the past decade.

    Equatorial Guinea now produces 350,000 barrels per day of oil and has
    become Africa's third-biggest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola.

    The state prosecutor alleged during the trial that plot to overthrow
    Obiang and install Moto in his place, had received support and
    finance from prominent individuals in South Africa, Britain and
    Spain, including Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime
    minister Margaret Thatcher.
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