A renowned dissident in Equatorial Guinea has died in prison while serving a 60-year sentence, according to the dissident’s organization. Julio Obama Mefuman, 51, a Spanish national who was seized from South Sudan in 2019 in what is believed to be an abduction, “died at Oveng Azem jail” in the eastern city of Mongomo, according to the MLGE3R movement. It did not specify the date of Obama Mefuman’s death, but it did accuse the country’s authoritarian leadership of “torture.”
MLGE3R refers for the Movement for the Liberation of the Third Equatorial Guinea and is located in Spain, the state’s former colonizer. On Monday, the foreign minister of Equatorial Guinea, Simeon Oyono Esono Angue, stated that Obama Mefuman “died at a Mongomo hospital due to sickness” but denied any allegations of torture. A spokeswoman for the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the death but declined to provide any details.
Calls for investigation
Andres Esono Ondo, the leader of the Convergence for Social Democracy, the sole legal opposition party in Equatorial Guinea, lamented “Julio Obama’s death in jail” in a tweet. He asked for a global investigation “to establish what transpired and guarantee that all detainees enjoy the right to family visits.” President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 80 years old, received 94.9 percent of the vote in presidential elections held in Ondo last November. Amnesty International asked Obiang to “guarantee an unbiased and prompt inquiry” into Obama Mefuman’s killing. Obama Mefuman died less than two weeks after Spain’s High Court ordered an inquiry into his possible kidnapping and torture, as well as that of a second dissident, Feliciano Efa Mangue, who also has Spanish citizenship. A court source reported that the two, together with two Equatorial Guinea citizens residing in Spain, were apprehended in South Sudan in late 2019 and flown to Equatorial Guinea. Mangue was given a 90-year sentence and Obama Mefuman was given a 60-year sentence in March 2020 for allegedly taking part in a 2017 coup attempt against Obiang.
