Exiled 'leader' ridicules Guinea coup plot story

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The Times
By David Sharrock
Alleged mission to topple Government was invented to mask President’s misdeeds

Snip

SEVERO MOTO, the self-styled president-in-exile of Equatorial Guinea, broke his silence yesterday to insist that President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the country’s ruler, had concocted tales of a coup attempt to cover up his misrule. At a bizarre press conference in the Spanish city of Toledo, Mr Moto denied that he had ever met Simon Mann, the Old Etonian sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment last week for buying weapons for the coup, or Sir Mark Thatcher, who is accused of financing it. “I didn’t even know the Iron Lady had a son,” he said.

He admitted that he and his “government-in-exile” had been planning to return to Equatorial Guinea when the alleged coup was rumbled, but only to participate in elections. “We decided to put the brakes on our return,” he said. “I have read that I was in a helicopter with Simon Mann and also that I was on a Spanish navy vessel off the coast. I was here in Spain all the time. I am not omnipresent.

“All this is a joke. For us the real story is what is going on in Equatorial Guinea. “Do you know how much money Obiang is stealing every day? Do you know the hundreds of thousands of deaths that he has caused?” Mr Moto, 60, has been living in exile in Spain since 1999. He was caught two years earlier by Angolan forces on a ship allegedly laden with weapons and destined for the tiny oil-rich West African nation.

President Obiang has demanded his extradition from Spain to stand trial. Mr Moto presented himself to the press at a hotel specialising in weddings, with exquisite views of the city. The atmosphere of intrigue was fuelled by the announcement that a car accident had delayed his arrival. A taxi was summoned to drive him up the steep hill to the hotel with Amalio Duaty, his Health Minister, and Regina Manya, the Education Minister. They let him do all the talking. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions,” Mr Moto began, then launched into an account of his government’s first official year in exile which had been completed with “absolute satisfaction”. Of the alleged coup plan he said: “We had nothing to do with it.” Mr Obiang had spread tales of a plan to overthrow him in order to disguise “the daily robbery of his people” and a litany of outrages including the building of palaces with the country’s vast oil revenues.

More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1264356,00.html

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1. More....

“Shortly before Obiang made his announcement about the attempted coup, I received news that a group of foreigners were buying weapons in the country and that they were with Obiang’s brother,” he said

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1264356,00.html

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2. power vacuum?

The situation, he said, was explosive. “At any moment a crisis could lead to a power vacuum inside the country.”