Equatorial Guinea sues France at UN court docket over Paris mansion | World Information
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Equatorial Guinea has filed a case towards France on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice accusing Paris of “misappropriation of public funds,” the court docket introduced Friday. It is the newest step in a prolonged authorized tug-of-war centered on a mansion located on an costly avenue within the French capital.
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The most recent case is linked to the conviction, upheld at enchantment final 12 months, in France of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of Equatorial Guinea’s long-serving president for cash laundering and embezzling thousands and thousands of dollars in public cash. The French court docket handed him a three-year suspended sentence, fined him 30 million euros and ordered property in France value tens of thousands and thousands of euros seized. That included the mansion on Avenue Foch, which France now plans to promote.
The Hague-based Worldwide Court docket of Justice stated that Equatorial Guinea says it has made requests, based mostly on a United Nations anti-corruption conference, “to get better sure property similar to property confiscated by France” that the French authorities has not responded to. Among the many property requested is the Avenue Foch mansion. The African nation filed the case towards France Thursday.
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Equatorial Guinea argues that by “disregarding” the request, France has “violated its obligations below the Conference,” the court docket stated.
The African nation is asking the court docket to rule that France is breaching the U.N. conference and to order France to “return to Equatorial Guinea all property that's the topic of a restoration request from Equatorial Guinea.”
It additionally asks the court docket to impose a direct ban on the sale of the mansion on the broad avenue resulting in the Arc de Triomphe.
Whereas the case might take years on the Hague-based court docket, a listening to will possible be scheduled in coming weeks to debate the pressing request for the sale ban.
It's not the primary time the mansion has been the topic of a case on the U.N.'s highest judicial organ. In December 2020, the world court docket dominated that the property was by no means a diplomatic outpost, rejecting Equatorial Guinea's argument that it served because the nation's embassy and that France due to this fact was barred from seizing it below a treaty governing diplomatic relations between nations.
Obiang was accused by French prosecutors of spending tens of thousands and thousands of dollars in France with funds stemming from corruption, embezzlement and extortion in his nation. He has led a lavish life-style involving luxurious and sports activities automobiles, designer garments, artworks of nice worth and high-end actual property.
Regardless of its oil and gasoline riches, Equatorial Guinea has a dramatic hole between its privileged ruling class and far of the inhabitants, which thrives primarily on subsistence farming. The previous Spanish colony is run by Africa’s longest-serving president, Obiang’s father Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
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