PARIS, July 28 (Reuters) - France's highest appeal court on Wednesday upheld a guilty verdict against the son of Equatorial Guinea's president for embezzlement, paving the way for the potential return of tens of millions of dollars to the country's people.
Teodoro Obiang Mangue, who is also the vice president of the Gulf of Guinea nation, was handed a three-year suspended sentence and a 30 million euro fine at the end of his trial in absentia in 2020. Luxury assets seized in France during the investigation were ordered to be confiscated.
Obiang has always denied any wrongdoing and argued that French courts had no right to rule on his assets, but the Cour de Cassation rejected his appeal. Now that there can be no more appeals in this case, the assets are set to be put on sale under a new French law which stipulates that the money, instead of going to the French state’s coffers, should go back to Equatorial Guinea.Obiang’s father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has ruled Equatorial Guinea since taking power in a coup in 1979, 11 years after independence from Spain.
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