Aggravated murder, spying, treason, armed robbery and military offences are capital crimes.

Aggravated murder, spying, treason, armed robbery and military offences are capital crimes.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has ruled the country since seizing power in a military coup d'etat in 1979, when he deposed his uncle and first post independence president (from Spain in 1968) Francisco Nguema.
Obiang Nguema had his uncle tried and executed. He proclaimed an amnesty for refugees (Nguema had caused a third of the population to flee through widespread human rights abuses) and released some 5,000 political prisoners. However, he kept the absolute control he had inherited.
President Obiang Nguema won Equatorial Guinea's first-ever multiparty presidential election in 1996 with 99% of the vote, amid reports of widespread fraud and irregularities. He was re-elected with 97.1 percent of the vote and 98 percent of registered voters participating in a December 2002 election again marred by extensive fraud and intimidation.
The President controls most opposition parties through patronage and the police and security forces through the Minister of the Interior. The judiciary is not independent.
On April 28, 2006 a judicial source stated that the previous week saw a man, Fernando Esono, nicknamed ‘Maabis’, was put to death in the Evinayong prison courtyard, where he was being held. Before this, the last known execution was carried out in 1997.
Three executions were carried out in 2007 and 4 in 2010, and no one was recorded in 2011 and 2012. One death sentence was imposed in Equatorial Guinea in 2012. On 7 May, Amadou Tamboura, a 20 year old Malian national, was sentenced to death by the Provincial Court in the city of Bata for aggravated murder of a woman, although the prosecution had asked for a custodial sentence. An appeal was lodged with the Supreme Court.
On December 20, 2012, Equatorial Guinea was absent during the vote on the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.