Judge Santiago Pedraz maintains his decision to cede jurisdiction to Equatorial Guinea to investigate one of President Teodoro Obiang's sons for the kidnapping and torture of four opponents, two of them Spanish, one of whom died in unclear circumstances. The magistrate has rejected the appeals presented by the prosecutor Vicente González Mota and by the representation of the defendants who oppose the dictator's regime investigating the facts. For almost three years, the National Court has been investigating Carmelo Ovono Obiang, the Minister of the Interior and the Director General of Security of that country for crimes with terrorist purposes.
The prosecution argued in its appeal that Pedraz could not cede jurisdiction of the case to Equatorial Guinea after the Criminal Chamber agreed to convert the preliminary proceedings into ordinary procedure, but he responds in his order that this decision of the collegiate body It does not override your decision. And that it can be adopted in both scenarios. In his order of transfer of jurisdiction, Pedraz considered credible the alleged investigation opened by the authorities of that country against Carmelo Ovono Obiang, Secretary of State of the Presidency, and agreed that all prior proceedings in the case be sent to the Supreme Court of Justice of the former Spanish colony, including the testimonies of protected witnesses who have testified in Spain. He also suggested to the Police that they cease their investigations.
Teodoro Obiang, father of the main investigator, is, in his capacity as Head of State, the president of the Superior Council of the Judiciary and highest authority. The Equatoguinean Constitution also attributes the power to appoint and remove from office the attorney general of the republic. To save his son Teodorín, current vice president, from French justice, the autocrat carried out an identical maneuver in 2017, saying that a case for the same events had already been opened in Equatorial Guinea, in the so-called case of poorly acquired goods. The judges of that country did not admit the deception and Teodorín was tried and sentenced in absentia to three years in prison for money laundering. All his assets in France were confiscated.
Both the prosecution and the accusations have defended in their appeals that if the need to cede jurisdiction to this alleged Guinean investigation were finally concluded, it would be up to the Supreme Court to resolve it and they asked Pedraz that in that case he would be obliged to send a reasoned statement. The judge maintains in his new order that there is no basis to doubt the Guinean investigation against the entire leadership of the Ministry of the Interior of the former Spanish colony. “It is not understood how this instructor can reason what is not recorded. What circumstances can be revealed before the Supreme Court so that it decides whether or not the transfer proceeds,” he argues. He rejects the accusation's arguments about corruption and lack of guarantees from Equatorial Guinea in any judicial process and describes them as generic. “It is not enough to say that the Equatorial Guinea regime and its judiciary are corrupt or uncooperative. “We must specify the causes for this case and thus decide whether the clause applies or not.”
The magistrate affirms that in Equatorial Guinea investigations are being carried out on the case, despite the fact that in Spain no documentary accreditation has been received regarding any of them. And he concludes his order by saying that the authorities of that country “request that the court offer actions and submit statements and that the injured parties,” that is, the families of those kidnapped, tortured and disappeared, “may therefore appear in said procedure.” , and also control the safeguard.” An offer that the families of the victims, about whom the Spanish Government has not heard anything for more than a year and a half, nor those whom it has been able to visit, consider “an offense and a mockery.”
Recently, the Criminal Chamber of the National Court accepted the prosecution's appeals and accusations and forced Pedraz to convert his previous proceedings into an ordinary summary since the terrorism crimes for which Obiang's son is being investigated contemplate penalties exceeding nine years in prison. The decision of the Criminal Chamber makes its magistrates the only ones competent to decide whether to file the case. Pedraz's new order announces that the summary will be concluded if the Criminal Chamber rejects the appeals presented in the coming days by the prosecutor and the representation of the victims.
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The defense of Obiang's son and the other two senior officials of the Guinean Government is carried out by Javier Gómez Bermúdez, former judge of the National Court and former colleague of the investigator of the case.
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