Reuters is reporting this morning that two French judges have sought an international warrant for the arrest of Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the playboy son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. According to the story, "The two judges, Roger Le Loire and Rene Grouman, consider there are grounds to suspect that Teodorin Obiang, who is agriculture minister in the small oil-rich central African country, acquired real estate in France by fraud."
The story cites an unnamed judicial source.
Le Loire and Grouman are the investigating judges in the BMA case that has targeted corruption in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Congo-Brazzaville. In 1998, Le Loire issued an international arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and in 2001 he issued a summons tor Henry Kissinger, then visiting Paris, to testify in court about American involvement in Operation Condor. (The summons, delivered to Kissinger at his hotel, was ignored as the U.S. State Department suggested to the French that such requests should be submitted through official channels.)