Spanish court to order arrest of Equatorial Guinea leader’s son

Spain's High Court has accepted an appeal by members of Equatorial Guinea's opposition and ordered a lower court to issue arrest warrants for the son of the country's president and two other officials over allegations of torture and kidnapping. Carmelo Ovono Obiang, son of President Teodoro Obiang, and two other senior officials were accused of abducting four members of the Spain-based opposition group, the Movement for the Liberation of Equatorial Guinea Third Republic (MLGE3R), while they were on a trip to South Sudan in 2019. In a complaint lodged with Spain's High Court in 2020, the MLGE3R alleged that the four – two of whom were Spanish citizens – were sent to Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony, on a government plane and tortured, a court document showed.