Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, April 22, 2019 (AFP)
A leading Equatorial Guinea opposition figure arrested in Chad almost two weeks ago has been "abducted" by the authorities there, his party said on Monday.
Andres Esono Ondo, leader of the Convergence for Social Democracy ( CPDS ), was detained on April 11 and is accused of preparing a coup against the Malabo government.
Equatorial Guinea's external security minister Juan Antonio Bibang Nchuchuma has said the sole objective of his trip was to acquire weapons and ammunition and to recruit "terrorists" to carry out a coup in Equatorial Guinea.
He was backed with foreign money, the minister added.
But CPDS said the arrest of Esono Ondo was an "abduction... without reason by the Chadian authorities".
It was an "unsuitable terrorist practice for a normal state", the party said in a statement.
Esono Ondo was arrested in the Guera region, 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the Chadian capital "in the company of Saleh Kebzabo, leader of Chad's main opposition party," according to authorities.
Kebzabo has dismissed the minister's allegations as "gratuitous accusations" put up by the government to damage the opposition.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 76, has repeatedly accused people within Equatorial Guinea and elsewhere of seeking to overthrow him.
A trial of 150 other alleged coup plotters was suspended in early April, a defence lawyer said.
Obiang Nguema himself seized power in a 1979 putsch. His critics accuse him of brutal repression, election fraud and corruption.
In a landmark 2017 judgement a French court convicted his son, the country's vice president Teodorin Obiang, of stealing public money to buy luxury goods in France.
He was handed a three-year suspended sentence in the trial, which he did not attend.
Equatorial Guinea is one of Africa's top oil producers but the bulk of the population of some 1.2 million lives in poverty. The country has witnessed several coups since independence from Spain in 1968.

Sumber : AFP