The MLGE3R organisation reported late Sunday that 51-year-old Julio Obama Mefuman, who was also of Spanish nationality, “died in Oveng Azem prison” in the eastern city of Mongomo.
Obama Mefuman’s death was not given a date, but the hardline government was accused of “torture” without providing any further details.
The Movement for the Liberation of the Third Equatorial Guinea is the name of the organisation, which has its headquarters in Spain, the former colony of the central African kingdom.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Spanish foreign ministry confirmed the death but would not provide further information.
Andres Esono Ondo, head of Equatorial Guinea’s only authorised opposition party, the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), published a tweet in which he condemned “Julio Obama’s death in prison.”
In order to “clarify what transpired and ensure that other convicts have the right to family visits,” he called for a global investigation.
Esono Ondo voted in the November 2018 presidential elections, which were won by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 80, who received 94.9 percent of the vote.
Following a coup in 1979, Obiang has maintained one of Africa’s most repressive regimes, according to rights activists.
Obama Mefuman passed away less than two weeks after the Spanish High Court ordered an inquiry into the alleged kidnapping and torture of both him and another dissident, Feliciano Efa Mangue, who also had Spanish nationality.
According to a court source, those two were apprehended in South Sudan in late 2019 and flown to Equatorial Guinea along with two other nationals of Equatorial Guinea who live in Spain. The insider claims that the Spanish investigation is focusing on three people.
They are Carmelo Ovono Obiang, one of Obiang’s sons, Isaac Nguema Endo, the director of security, and Nicolas Obama Nchama, the minister of security.
The dissidents were allegedly transferred to Equatorial Guinea on a “presidential plane,” where they were repeatedly tortured in order to coerce confessions, according to El Pais newspaper.
Obama Mefuman and Mangue were each given 60 years in prison in March 2020 for allegedly taking part in an attempt to overthrow Obiang in 2017.