One of the sons of Equatorial Guinea's President, Ruslàn Obiang Nsue, was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison for misuse of public property in the illegal sale of a national airline plane, a Malabo court said.

"The court sentences Ruslán Obiang Nsue, former deputy general manager of the company (Ceiba Intercontinental, editor's note), to a prison sentence and a heavy fine, as well as the full reimbursement of the proceeds from the sale of the plane," said Hilario Mitogo, press director general of the Supreme Court of Justice in Malabo, in a WhatsApp conversation dedicated to journalists.

The execution of the prison sentence could be suspended if the convicted person pays a refund of 144.2 million CFA francs (approximately 220,000 euros) to Ceiba Intercontinental, compensation of 14.4 million CFA francs (approximately 22,000 euros) and a fine of 5 million CFA francs (approximately 7,622 euros) to the Equatorial Guinean State.

The 50-year-old former Secretary of State for Sports and Youth was also prosecuted for "abuse of office and misappropriation of public funds," charges for which he was ultimately acquitted.

Authorities opened an investigation in November 2022 after discovering the disappearance of the aircraft, an ATR 72-500 belonging to the national airline, Ceiba Intercontinental, which had been undergoing routine maintenance in Spain since 2018.

It was then established that this aircraft had been sold to the company Binter Technic, specializing in aeronautical maintenance and based in Las Palmas, on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.

Arrested in January 2023, he has been placed under house arrest since then, on the orders of his half-brother, Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, nicknamed "Teodorin".

The latter, for his part, was finally sentenced by the French courts in July 2021 to three years in prison, suspended, and a fine of 30 million euros for embezzlement of public funds in the context of "ill-gotten gains" cases.

Equatorial Guinea, a small, oil-rich Central African country, has been ruled for more than 46 years by 83-year-old President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. This is a world record for longevity in power for a living head of state, excluding monarchs.