YEREVAN, JUNE 6, ARMENPRESS: A spokesman for Armenian foreign ministry has confirmed today that Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro Obiang Nguema on Sunday pardoned six Armenian pilots who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for their alleged roles in an attempted coup last year.
The “total pardon” is for “the Armenian nationals being held at Malabo’s central prison,” the decree dated June 4 said. The president granted the pardon as a “humanitarian gesture” on the occasion of his 63rd birthday.
The six Armenians, who have always claimed their innocence, are to be immediately released and handed over to “competent authorities” who will see that they are repatriated to Armenia, according to the decree. The Armenian pilots were sentenced with others in November in Equatorial Guinea. They were accused of taking part in a plot to overthrow Nguema which also involved suspected mercenaries who were arrested in Zimbabwe for alleging picking up weapons there to use in the coup attempt.
The pardon had been preceded by Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian’s February visit to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea’s capital, where he spent two days holding talks with the country’s prime minister, foreign minister and chief prosecutor over the release of Armenians. Also Armenian president Robert Kocharian, head of the Armenian Church, Catholicos Karekin II, the late Pope John Paul II and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, asked the Equatorial Guinea president to pardon the pilots.
Apart from that Ara Abrahamian, a Moscow-based tycoon of Armenian descent and the president of the Union of Russian Armenians, traveled to Malabo earlier this year and spoke to Nguema about the release of the pilots. Later in Yerevan he pledged to bring them back in early summer. All six Armenians pleaded not guilty to the accusations. The court verdict was denounced as “grossly unfair” by Amnesty International
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