The Minister for Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho, today guaranteed consular support for the Portuguese citizen detained without charge in Equatorial Guinea for over a year.
“I’ve been talking to my colleague from Equatorial Guinea about this, the [Equatorial Guinean] ambassador in Lisbon has also been talking, our ambassador in Malabo [too], so we’re doing what we can in relation to the citizen, namely giving him the consular support that our Embassy in Malabo can give with visits from the ambassador,” said the head of Portuguese diplomacy.
Questioned by Lusa in Praia on the sidelines of his speech at the archipelago’s 3rd Annual Foreign Policy Conference (CAPE), Cravinho replied that he hopes the situation will be resolved.
Portuguese businessman Nuno Pimentel has been detained without charge in Equatorial Guinea for over a year and accuses the local authorities of kidnapping and torture.
Nuno Pimentel’s wife, Reina Pimentel, an Ecuadorean-Guinean citizen, was also arrested, and later released, at the end of 2022, for allegedly failing to pay for the rental of a vehicle.
Nuno Pimentel’s case involves the Equato-Guinean Director General of Public Works, Justino Nchama Ondo, nephew of the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, and son of Armengol Ondo Nguema, younger brother of the head of state, for many years his head of security and considered the most influential man in the regime.
On December 9, 2022, Justino Nchama Ondo “kidnapped” the Portuguese businessman, with the support of two men, in a hotel in Malabo, according to the text of Pimentel’s complaint to the Luba Court of First Instance and Instruction, consulted by Lusa.
In this complaint, Pimentel reports that he was “tortured”, with “serious injuries” inflicted on him, and taken to Luba, where he was left at the local main police station.
Alogo de Obono, grandson of Equato-Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, a lawyer specializing in international law, a university lecturer in Paris and president of a non-governmental anti-corruption organization based in the French capital, told Lusa at the time that Nuno Pimental was the target of “extortion” in a corruption case that was “classic and well known in Equatorial Guinea”.
