Paris, 15 December 2015 – The judgment delivered today by the Court of Cassation constitutes a doubly important and historic stage.
Firstly, by dismissing this appeal, the Court of Cassation paves the way for the trial of Teodoro Obiang who, to his heart’s content, has, in vain for years, multiplied all possible appeals to either cancel or block the proceedings.
Then, this judgment is one more stone in the weakening of the phony immunity when it serves to provide for his impunity.
In addition, the Court of Cassation asserts, as the House of Lords had stated about Augusto Pinochet, that immunity ceases in the case of a dignitary vested with a general interest mission when it is betrayed in favour of personal financial interests.
The judicial odyssey initiated by the two undersigned associations in 2007, despite all the manoeuvres to derail it, will continue and now make it possible to put on trial those whose embezzlement charges brought against them have seriously harmed the interests of the people whom they had a mandate to protect.
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