Death for Equatorial Guinea 4
2010-08-22 20:09
Malabo - Four top military and government officials in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea have been sentenced to death for their role in a 2009 attack on the presidential palace, state television reported on Sunday.
The four men were convicted by a military tribunal of being "criminally responsible and the authors of the offences of an attack on the head of state and representative of the government, terrorism and treason", according to the verdict which was handed down on Saturday.
The four were named as Jose Abeso Nsue Nchama, a former captain of the country's land forces, his deputy Manuel Ndong Anseme, former customs chief Jacinto Micha Obiang and Alipio Ndong Asumu, a member of the presidential security team, according to the verdict.
Two other officers were jailed for 20 years.
Malabo originally accused the gunmen who took part in the February 17 2009 sea-borne assault on the palace of being members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a Nigerian militant group, which denied any involvement.
Footage of the attack on state television showed bullet marks on the walls of the presidential palace as well as smashed windows and doors, though President Teodoro Obiang Nguema was absent at the time.
Authorities later accused exiled opposition leader Faustino Ondo Ebang of being behind the attack.
Equatorial Guinea, Africa's third-biggest oil exporter, has a history of coups, the last successful one being when Obiang Nguema toppled and executed his uncle in 1979, establishing an iron-fisted regime.
- SAPA