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Amnesty International has called for the fair retrial of seven Nigerian nationals convicted by a court in Equatorial Guinea for their alleged involvement in an attempted coup.

On April 5, a court in the capital, Malabo, sentenced the six men and one woman to 12 years imprisonment, each on the charges of attempting to assassinate President Teodoro Mbasogo during an alleged attack on the presidential palace the previous year.

According to reports, the accused Nigerians pleaded “not guilty” and claimed to be fishermen and traders who had been lost at the sea and had drifted into Equatorial Guinea waters where they were arrested by the navy. A Nigerian woman also detained at the sea has since died in custody.

“The Equatorial Guinean authorities must take action to make sure these men receive a fair retrial,” said Tawanda Hondora, deputy Africa director at Amnesty International.

“They were denied access to proper legal representation and their complaints that they had been tortured in custody have not been investigated, neither has the death in custody of one other Nigerian woman.”

According to media reports, gunmen in speedboats launched the attack on the presidential palace in Malabo in the early hours of February 17, 2009.

The government blamed ‘MEND’, a rebel movement in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger-Delta region for the attack.

Later on the day of the attack, the Equatorial Guinean navy arrested the Nigerian men and women in a boat in Equatorial Guinea territorial waters.

The seven Nigerians: Marck Etim Marck, Eyoh Okon Ikara, Eyon Kun Jhon, Effiong Matew, Okokon Iyanam (aka Mintay), Isangadighi and Ekaette Eyo Okon, a woman, were tried between March 17 and 22, 2010 by the Malabo Court of Appeal