Teodoro Obiang Nguema: A brutal, bizarre jailer

It is hard to think of many African despots who make Robert Mugabe seem stable and benign, but Teodoro Obiang Nguema is one who does. For Simon Mann, the Old Etonian mercenary who seems about to pass from the custody of the former into the hands of the latter, it is a less than comforting thought.

Whatever his other faults, Zimbabwe's leader - to take one example - has never been accused of cannibalism. But if Obiang's opponents are to be believed, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea likes nothing more than to eat the testicles of those who have crossed him. Since Mann is accused of plotting to overthrow Obiang to get his hands on the tiny state's massive oil wealth, he could be excused for having sleepless nights.

Related articles

• Fury over Zimbabwe's UN role
• Extradited to Equatorial Guinea: So, where is Mark Thatcher?
• Search the news archive for more stories

Severo Moto, the exiled politician whom Mann and his fellow adventurers hoped to install in power, says Obiang "systematically eats his political rivals". He once told Spanish radio that the ruler "has just devoured a police commissioner. I say 'devoured', as this commissioner was buried without his testicles and his brain". Other opponents have had their livers removed, although it is not known whether they were served to the president.

Even those less ill-disposed towards the 64-year-old Obiang claim that he encourages such tales, much as Uganda's Idi Amin once did, to awe his enemies. It is unlikely, however, that any other graduates of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, in an affluent suburb of Detroit, have ever been thought to have tasted human flesh. Nor have any of Obiang's contemporaries at the Spanish military training college gone on to form their own torture network.

But it was not Obiang's overseas education that transformed him into the bizarre and brutal dictator he is today. That is more likely to have resulted from the tutelage of his uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema. He ruled Equatorial Guinea during the 1970s with a barbarism that makes Obiang look amateurish.

Macias may have started as an elected leader - he took power when the country gained independence from Spain in 1968 - but it did not take long for him to turn into a vicious tyrant. Equatorial Guinea, a scattering of islands and a tiny scrap of mainland in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, had always been desperately poor, but then it became a slaughterhouse. During his decade in power, more than 100,000 people - one third of the population - were either killed or managed to flee.

The heads of Macias's more prominent victims were stuck on poles and paraded in the streets. Since bullets were expensive, some victims were garroted; others had their heads smashed in with iron bars. On occasions, soldiers didn't even bother to kill their victims: they were simply buried alive.

Throughout Macias's reign of terror, Obiang was at his side, first as military governor of Bioko province, then as head of the national guard. When the end finally came - Macias was shot in the arm after fleeing to the jungle with suitcases of foreign currency - Obiang assumed control of a new Supreme Military Council. His first challenge was to decide what to do with his despotic uncle. To this day Equatorial Guinea lacks a proper courtroom, so a trial was staged in a rundown cinema. Macias was placed in a cage, suspended above 1,500 people who had come to watch, and the judge was hand-picked to avoid the old dictator pinning any blame on the new.

When Macias was duly sentenced to death 101 times, a new Moroccan presidential guard had to form the firing squad, because local soldiers feared his alleged magical powers. Hoping to inherit this aura, Obiang made sure that he took possession of his uncle's extensive collection of skulls.

That was in 1979. Although Obiang filled his government with his relatives and the country's notorious Black Beach prison with his opponents, the pickings from a trickle of cocoa exports were slim for many years - until the discovery of offshore oil. In the past decade Equatorial Guinea has become Africa's third-largest crude exporter.

Oil earnings are now $3bn a year - enough to give the country the second highest income per head in the world. But anyone who has seen the rotting capital, Malabo, knows that the money ends up in the hands of one family. In contrast to the damp-stained buildings outside, glittering chandeliers light up Obiang's palace.

When he wants to travel, the president has a choice of six personal planes, the most recent of which has a king-size bed and a bathroom with gold-plated taps. Destinations include the mansion in Maryland or the holiday home in Cape Town. Meanwhile his son, Teodorin, has managed to build an impressive fleet of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Bentleys, despite claiming to earn an official salary of only £30,000 a year. Many are in Paris, where he lives in a luxury hotel.

And if Paris or Cape Town become too dull, Little Teodoro, as some in Equatorial Guinea call him (although possibly not to his face), can always retire to his $35m Malibu mansion, where his neighbours include Britney Spears and Mel Gibson.

According to US investigators, much of the wealth was funnelled from American oil majors to Obiang's family through a once-prestigious US bank, Riggs. A Senate inquiry found that $700m had been deposited with Riggs, and that the oil companies were fully aware that the money was going to Obiang's private bank accounts. In one case, $450,000 in rental fees for office space was paid to a 14-year-old relative of Obiang.

West Africa's oil reserves have become increasingly important to the US, which is preoccupied with the "war on terror" and the need to find oil sources as far away as possible from the unstable Middle East. Deals have been struck with many countries in the region, including the tiny island of Sao Tome and Principe. In Angola, which will soon overtake Nigeria to become Africa's largest oil producer, the national airline serves just three intercontinental destinations - Portugal (the former colonial master), Brazil and Houston, Texas.

In these circumstances, Washington is happy to turn a blind eye to Obiang's activities, despite the State Department acknowledging the widespread use of torture and complete lack of democracy. The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has welcomed Obiang to the US, referring to him as a "good friend".

But Mann's botched coup attempt was not the first effort to overthrow him, and with so much wealth at stake, it is unlikely to be the last. There is no chance of him being ousted by any other means - presidential elections in 1998 and 2002 saw Obiang romp home with 98 per cent of the vote.

The president is believed to be suffering from prostate cancer, which is said to be getting worse. But few think his family will wait for nature to take its course, and the only question appears to be who will take over, with Obiang's two sons seen as the likely contenders. The playboy lifestyle of Teodorin has allegedly not gone down well with the oil bosses, who are said to favour the American-educated Gabriel.

For now, though, Equatorial Guinea's 520,000-strong population is stuck with their father. So too, it seems, is the hapless Simon Mann.