The Criminal Chamber of the National Court has agreed to issue an international search and arrest warrant against Carmelo Ovono Obiang, Secretary of State of the Presidency of Equatorial Guinea and son of President Teodoro Obiang, for the kidnapping and torture of four opponents, one of them a Spaniard who died in unclear circumstances. The decision of the three magistrates is a consequence of the appeal filed by the plaintiffs, the families of the victims, against the refusal of Judge Santiago Pedraz, investigator of the case, to request the arrest of Ovono Obiang, of the Minister of the Interior, Nicolás Obama , and Isaac Nguema Endo, Director of Security, all investigated in Spain for crimes of kidnapping and torture for terrorist purposes.
During the investigation, the judge has refused, on several occasions, to issue the international search and arrest warrant to Interpol that prosecutor Vicente González Mota and the complainants have been demanding since last March. Also, when the three investigated stood him down last March and did not come to give a statement by videoconference. Previously, they had managed to avoid their in-person statement, alleging “public commitments” that prevented them from traveling. Argument that was enough for the magistrate to summon them by videoconference. The predictable declaration of rebellion never came.
The decision of the Criminal Court, to which EL PAÍS has had access, indicates that the three investigated are in a state of rebellion despite having been given the possibility of testifying by videoconference. The magistrates highlight that Pedraz has not set out in any of his rulings any reasoned reason why he decides not to issue the search and arrest warrants for the dictator's son and the other two high-ranking officials of his Government.
Regarding the lack of evidence against the three investigated as argued by the investigating judge, the court concludes that the case has provided sufficient data for more than two years that “points to their possible involvement” in the events under investigation. Thus, they highlight their possible relationship with the detective agency that monitored the four kidnapped people and the transfers of significant amounts of money into Obiang's son's account. Regarding Pedraz's competence to investigate the case, the magistrates highlight that the “instructor's own rulings clearly explained the reasons why the Spanish jurisdiction would indirectly be competent.”
Third setback
Several weeks ago the same court also rectified Judge Pedraz and forced him to convert his previous proceedings into an ordinary summary. A relevant decision because from now on only the magistrates of this body are competent to file the case. This decision of the Second Section of the Criminal Chamber of the National Court was adopted on the same day that Pedraz decided to cede jurisdiction of the case to Equatorial Guinea, accepting an alleged investigation opened for the same events in the former Spanish colony against the security leadership of the African country, made up of Ovono, the autocrat's son; Nicolás Obama, Minister of the Interior; and Isaac Nguema Endo, Director of Security.
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The new decision of the Criminal Court is the third setback that the investigating judge in this case has received. Last September, this same court ordered that the origin of the 793,000 euros that Carmelo Ovono Obiang deposited in 200 and 500 euro bills into his BBVA account in Madrid be investigated. Account closed by the bank after warnings from its Compliance service. The magistrates ask that the use and origin of this money be investigated to see if it served “as an essential tool” to finance the espionage, kidnapping and torture of the four opponents of the dictator's regime residing in Spain. For Pedraz there are no indications of laundering in these money movements and in his filing order, despite the order received, he once again defended the same thesis. The judge affirms that there is no indication that he had been used to monitor, deceive and kidnap the victims, one of whom, Julio Obama, 61, died in January 2022 in Equatorial Guinea. And he assures that the monitoring, accredited by the Police, of 15 detectives of the opponents of the Obiang regime is not a crime.
The authorities of the former Spanish colony have refused to repatriate Obama's body, despite the demand of the judge, his relatives and all parties in the European Parliament. Foreign Affairs does not know the whereabouts and state of health of the three kidnapped people and for more than a year no Spanish representative has been allowed to visit them.
land in between
Carmelo Ovono, 44 years old, with residence, properties and companies in Spain, has been in Malabo since on December 29, 2022, Judge Pedraz ordered the Police to hand him the complaint that was being processed against him. Obiang's son, who was spending the night in a central hotel in Madrid, took a plane that same morning and has not set foot on Spanish territory again. Weeks before, the magistrate had ordered the agents to detain him at the Madrid-Barajas airport, where a police operation was awaiting him, transfer him to the National Court and seize his mobile phone and electronic devices. On that occasion, the person in charge of Intelligence abroad in Equatorial Guinea changed his travel plans and he did not appear.
During the investigation of the case, Pedraz has not explained in his rulings and records that change in criteria that caused discomfort among the agents of the General Information Commissariat who were secretly investigating this case. The defense of the three investigated is represented by Javier Gómez Bermúdez, former judge of the National Court, and former colleague of the investigator of the case.
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