A French court handed down a three-year suspended jail term on Friday to the son of Equatorial Guinea’s leader, Teodorin Obiang, after a landmark graft trial that lifted the lid on his playboy lifestyle.
The 48-year-old, who is vice president of the West African country, was also given a suspended fine of $35 million dollars by judges after the trial in which he was accused of embezzlement and misusing public money.
The case, which was spearheaded by two anti-corruption NGOs, is the first of three involving families of African leaders accused of using ill-gotten gains to live it up in France.
“Every year billions of euros are embezzled to fund the profligate lifestyle of a few corrupt leaders abroad, particularly in France,” Transparency International, one of the two NGOs said ahead of the ruling, adding that it aimed “to ensure that France is no longer a place to launder money”.
Obiang’s lawyers slammed the ruling as an “activist decision” and said they were considering an appeal.
The families of late Gabonese leader Omar Bongo and the Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso are also under investigation for embezzlement.
Obiang is the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president of 38 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
He was accused of spending more than 1,000 times his official annual salary on a six-storey mansion in a posh part of the French capital, a fleet of fast cars and artworks, among other assets.
Prosecutors argued he could not have funded the purchases without raiding state coffers.
They had called for him to be given a three-year jail term and a 30-million-euro ($35 million) fine.
The Paris court handed down the sentences but suspended them, meaning that Obiang would only face jail time or have to pay the money if he is found to have re-offended in France.
The court also ruled that his 107-million-euro ($123-million) residence near the Champs-Elysees avenue — which boasts a hammam, a disco and gold-plated taps — be confiscated, along with other assets.
Obiang did not attend his three-week trial in June and July, dismissing it as a “farce”.
His lawyers accused France of “meddling in the affairs of a sovereign state”.
The court ruled that while Obiang could not be tried in France for his actions in his homeland he could be prosecuted for laundering money for his personal use.
Obiang was agriculture and forestry minister before being promoted by his father to vice president in 2012, putting him in pole position to succeed him as leader when the post becomes vacant.
Here is CGTN’s Jane Kiyo’s story on how it all got here.
