Amnesty says Equatorial Guinea coup trial not fair

[struggle4progress]

Sun 25 Sep 2005 11:54 AM ET
By Pascal Fletcher

DAKAR, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Amnesty International branded as unfair an Equatorial Guinea trial whose 23 defendants were convicted of plotting a coup and called for a probe into allegations most defendants were tortured.

At the end of the two-week trial in the tiny West African nation, a military court last week handed down jail terms ranging from 12 to 30 years to the accused, most of them military officers, according to national state radio.

They were convicted of plotting a coup last October against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the oil-producing former Spanish colony since he seized power in a 1979 coup.

"The trial did not conform to international standards of fair trials," Amnesty said in a statement sent to Reuters at the weekend. <snip>

http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L2511763