EQUATORIAL GUINEA. DEATH PENALTY DEMANDED AGAINST 'COUP PLOTTERS'

prosecutors in Equatorial Guinea called for the death penalty for six soldiers charged with planning a coup against President Teodoro Obiang Nguena in October 2004. The six, who went on trial with some 60 other defendants behind closed doors in a cinema in the tiny oil-rich country's economic capital Bata on September 13, were accused of having plotted to oust Obiang as he was celebrating the national holiday in the north east of the country.
In the case the prosecutor of the military court demanded the death penalty against the alleged ringleader, former Lieutenant Colonel Cipriano Nguema Mba, the former army paymaster general who fled the country in November 2003 after a previous plot was exposed.
He was being tried in absentia, while only one of the other five, Private Bernardo Nve, was present at the hearing when the death penalties were demanded.
Among the other defendants were Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Mba Mendama, a former military commander of Obiang's birthplace of Mongomo, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Ondo Abaga, who had been arrested in Benin and extradited, and Private Felipe Esono Ndumu, who was arrested in Nigeria.