A nephew of Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who was at the centre of a sex tape scandal last year, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzlement.
Baltasar Ebang Engonga, the former head of the National Financial Investigation Agency, diverted money for personal use, a court ruled.
Nicknamed “Bello” because of his good looks, the married Engonga gained notoriety last year, when he appeared in leaked videos having sex with different women, many of them wives and relatives of people close to the centre of power.
The leak occurred while he was in detention, accused of depositing a huge sum of embezzled money into secret accounts in the Cayman Islands.
He was found guilty along with five other officials who allegedly claimed the money as an allowance for travel – the amounts ranged from $9,000 (£6,600) to $220,000.
Engonga’s arrest last October and public humiliation was seen as an attempt to destroy any hope he had of becoming the next president of the oil-rich central African state.
His uncle is the world’s longest-serving president having been in power since 1979, and has appointed his son, Teodoro Obiang Mangue, as his vice-president.
Engonga used to investigate crimes such as money laundering, but found himself at the infamous Black Beach prison in the capital, Malabo, after being accused of corruption.
His phones and computers were seized and a few days later the intimate videos started appearing online in their dozens.
The authenticity of the videos was never verified, but as the computer equipment was in the hands of the security forces, suspicion fell on someone there leaking it, perhaps to trash Engonga’s reputation.
As well as imposing a jail sentence, the tribunal fined Engonga $220,000, supreme court press director Hilario Mitogo was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying in a WhatsApp message to journalists.
Source: BBC
