Ill-gotten gains: Malabo again seizes a UN tribunal against Paris


Equatorial Guinea has again seized the highest court of the UN against France, about a luxury Parisian mansion confiscated in the so-called “ill-gotten gains” case. The small Central African oil state filed proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Thursday, the latter announced in a press release on Friday.

In July 2021, French justice had definitively condemned the Equatoguinean vice-president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, nicknamed Teodorin, and confirmed the confiscation of a luxurious heritage fraudulently acquired.

One of the properties is a building on the very chic Avenue Foch in Paris, which Malabo believes houses its embassy, ​​but the ICJ had agreed with France in 2020 by judging that it does not have the status of diplomatic mission.

Equatorial Guinea is now seizing the ICJ on the grounds of “misappropriation of public funds” by France, according to the press release from the court in The Hague.

She asks the UN judges to block the sale by France of the building at 40-42 avenue Foch, estimated at more than 100 million euros and which notably has a cinema, a spa or even gold faucets. This request is made under the 2003 UN Convention against Corruption, Malabo believing that Paris has violated it, details the ICJ.

Teodorin Obiang, the all-powerful son of Equatoguinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 43 years, was definitively sentenced by French justice in 2021 to a three-year suspended prison sentence. , a fine of 30 million euros and the confiscation of his property in France.

According to French justice, he looted the coffers of his state before buying luxurious properties in some of the most expensive places in the world. A UN court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) adjudicates disputes between member states.



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