Santiago Pedraz, judge of the National Court, refused on December 10 to order the arrest of a son of the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiangwho is being investigated for the kidnapping of two opponents with Spanish nationality, although he agreed to block their assets in Spain after putting a bail of 300,000 euros for each victim.
This is stated in the different police reports and court decisions, to which EFE has had access, which have been taking place in this case since the filing of the complaint last October for the kidnapping of four opponents of Obiang residing in Spain, two of them of Spanish nationality, and whose investigations have been kept secret all these months.
On December 1, the Police informed Pedraz of the possible arrival in Spain of Carmelo Ovono Obiang or another of the two investigated in this case to spend the Christmas holidays with relatives residing in our country.
After establishing the Police day 11 a device at the Madrid airport for the arrest of Obiang’s son before his probable arrival in Spain from Malabo, he finally did not appear, as the judge investigating the case was told.
Pedraz did not see it necessary to agree on the “judicial” detention of those investigated, as requested by the Police and the complainants
It was not until December 28 when investigators detected the presence of Obiang’s son in a hotel establishment in Madrid.
They informed Pedraz of this and the next day, in a car, after agreeing lift the secrecy of the performancesthe magistrate decided that the agents limited themselves to giving him transfer of the complaint and that he was required to designate a lawyer and an address in Spain to notify you.
The representation of the complainants and the General Information Commissioner they had requested measures against those investigatedtwo of them -Carmelo Obiang and Nicolás Obama- with “stable and accredited residence” in Spain.
However, the judge, in an order dated December 10, did not see it necessary to agree to the “judicial” detention of those investigated, but rather, “as can be deduced from the report of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the police unit in case the presence of the themselves”, carry out the procedures “that are necessary to ensure that they, if applicable, are brought to justice without prejudice to the carrying out of the procedures that are necessary to be carried out by the unit in charge of the investigation on the taking of statements”.
Regarding the intervention of the devices that carry the seizure of digital information storage devices, Pedraz authorized in that same order the intervention of the devices in which evidence of the crimes investigated in this procedure could be found.
He also directed commandments of blocking different financial and credit institutions of accounts related to those investigated, and agreed to intervene in the properties of Obiang’s son in different parts of Spain after establishing a bond of 300,000 euros for each victim.
