Nexos-GE statement on the killing of prisoners in Oveng Asem

In the past week, the regime’s official media reported on the case brought before a military court, at the request of the prosecutor’s office of this special jurisdiction, against the director of the Oveng Asem prison, police captain Elias Obiang Ndumu, and his assistant, police lieutenant Fernando Ntutumu. Both are presented as confessed perpetrators of the crimes of abuse of authority and negligence, ill-treatment and torture perpetrated against inmates, resulting in the death of seven (7) of them, whose identities were not disclosed. Consequently, the sentences of 6 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 CFA francs were imposed on Elias Obiang Ndumu, and 2 years’ imprisonment on Fernando Ntutumu (by comparison, the same “military justice” imposed sentences of 90 years on the perpetrators of an alleged attempt to assassinate the tyrant Obiang).

As the commission of the above crimes is the result of the execution of orders contrary to the law, given by the vice-president of the republic in charge of defence and security, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the NEXOS-GE platform exhorts the state attorney general to extend the initiated criminal action to the same aforementioned ordering authority. In this way, it would comply with the mandate of article 50, point 2, of the current Fundamental Law.

In effect, and as can be inferred from their own statements, in carrying out the criminal acts that led to the death of the prisoners, the defendants at all times adhered strictly to the instructions given by the Vice-President of the Republic within the framework of the operation known as “Operation Clean-up”, proceeding (at the beginning of May 2022) to the arbitrary detention of about two thousand (2000) students, many of them minors, to their transfer and isolation in the Oveng Asem prison, depriving them of the right to communicate with their families, the right to receive legal assistance, medical care and visits. Likewise, in compliance with the instructions of the aforementioned ordering authority, they proceeded to subject the young prisoners to repeated torture and food deprivation, causing the death of several of them (information linked by prestigious human rights organisations and by the report “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Equatorial Guinea 2022”, by the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor).

Without prejudice to the above, the NEXOS-GE platform demands the imposition, without extenuating circumstances, of the sentences corresponding to the crimes committed by the defendants in obeying orders contrary to the law, in the sense of article 31 of Decree-Law number 10/1.980, dated July 4th, which approves the military ordinances for the armed forces of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. According to this regulation, “when orders received from a superior officer entail the execution of acts manifestly contrary to the law or constitute a crime against the fundamental laws of the Nation, no military personnel shall be obliged to obey them; in any case, they shall assume the grave responsibility for their action or omission”.

In the same context of demanding criminal responsibility from the ordering authority, the NEXOS-GE platform also urges the Public Prosecutor’s Office to extend the criminal action initiated before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice to the Vice-President of the Republic in charge of defence and security. Given that in the commission of the acts charged in this case (kidnapping, torture resulting in death), the Minister of National Security Nicolas Obama Nchama and the Vice Minister of Foreign Security Carmelo Ovono Obiang, also complied strictly with the orders given by the highest authority. Without prejudice to the personal responsibility that could be demanded of them for obeying orders manifestly contrary to the law.

Source RADIOMACUTO