Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, already sentenced in February 2020 by the Paris Court of Appeal, still loses a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court’s verdict proves France right in the context of the ill-gotten gains affair between the two countries.
The UN court ruled in favor of France, pronouncing the following verdict: “The building at 42, avenue Foch in Paris has never acquired the status of diplomatic mission of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea in the French Republic.” A sentence that could surprise the Equatorial Guinean authorities who had requested the opening of this trial by filing a complaint against France after the search carried out by the French police at the home of the president’s son in 2012. An operation during which the French authorities had seized the property worth 107 million euros and several other assets. An act deemed illegal by Equatorial Guinea, which had not hesitated to file a complaint with the high UN jurisdiction. As for France, it had quite simply specified that this property was a good acquired illicitly by the son of the president with the public funds of his country.
It is thus a new judicial failure for Teodorin Obiang Mangue, moreover, vice-president of Equatorial Guinea since 2016. In fact, in February 2020, he was sentenced to three years in prison suspended and 30 million euros. ‘euros fine for having illegally acquired immense property on French soil.
