Equatorial Guinea: Arrests and death in custody of a political opponent

Saturnino Ncogo Mbomio was arrested following the alleged discovery on 4 March 2008 of three weapons, including a machine gun, an old musket and ammunition in the boot of a second hand car being exported to Equatorial Guinea from the port of Sagunto in eastern Spain. [...] The Equatorial Guinea government claimed that the weapons were going to be used to stage a coup by Severo Moto, the leader of the banned PPGE, currently living in exile in Spain, who was arrested by the Spanish police in Toledo, Spain, on 14 April 2008 on charges of arms trafficking. [...] Saturnino Ncogo Mbomio, who the Equatorial Guinea authorities claimed was to take delivery of the car, was arrested by members of the security police on the morning of 12 March 2008 in his house in the neighbourhood of New Building in Malabo. [...] According to reports, two days later, on 15 March, the Prime Minister called Saturnino Ncogo’s relatives and informed them of his death by suicide and showed them CCTV footage of Saturnino Ncogo in his cell before he died but not of the moment of his death. [...] The Prime Minister then told the relatives to collect the body from the morgue and to bury it without delay as it was decomposing.