Spain to keep African opposition leader in jail
A Spanish judge Wednesday ordered Equatorial Guinea opposition leader Severo Moto held in jail on suspicion of arms trafficking, according to a copy of the court order viewed by CNN. Moto, 64, has been living in exile in Spain, the former colonial power in Equatorial Guinea. He was arrested earlier this week in Toledo province, south of Madrid. Judge Fernando Andreu of the National Court, in an eight-page ruling, linked Moto to the attempted shipment to Equatorial Guinea of weapons seized in a car in the port of Sagunto, in southeastern Spain. "From wiretapped telephone conversations, it's deduced that Severo Moto was not only fully aware of the purchase and shipment of the weapons to Equatorial Guinea, but that he coordinated and gave instructions to the others to carry out that trafficking," the court document said. In the car in Sagunto, Spanish police found an assault rifle, a rifle, a pistol, a semiautomatic pistol magazine and numerous boxes of ammunition for various weapons, the document said. Moto testified before the judge that he had nothing to do with the operation, the court ruling said. But it added that the judge said Moto was unable to explain the content of the wiretapped phone calls with the other suspects in the case. Police allege the operation included a man from Equatorial Guinea, acting on Moto's behalf to obtain a vehicle, and two Spanish men -- one to move the vehicle to Sagunto port and another to fund the operation. In return, Moto allegedly promised the financier favorable business treatment in Equatorial Guinea if Moto eventually came to power there. Last month, Spain's Supreme Court upheld a request to grant political refugee status to Moto. He had enjoyed refugee status since the Spanish government granted it in 1986. But the government revoked the status in January 2006, leading Moto to launch a series of appeals that ultimately took him to the Supreme Court. The U.S. State Department says courts in Equatorial Guinea have convicted Moto several times in absentia for attempting to overthrow the government. He leads a banned opposition party called the Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea, according to Amnesty International, which has monitored his trials at home and has called them unfair. Moto also calls himself the president of the Equatorial Guinea government-in-exile, and he has long been at odds with Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang, who has ruled the country for nearly three decades, after seizing power in a coup. The CIA World Factbook says that "Equatorial Guinea has experienced rapid economic growth due to the discovery of large offshore oil reserves, and in the last decade has become Sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest oil exporter." |
