Security class Maximum | Population 80 (as of 2007) | |
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Black Beach (Spanish: Playa Negra), located on the island of Bioko, in the capital city of Malabo in Equatorial Guinea, is one of Africa's most notorious prisons.
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Map of Black's Beach, San Diego, CA 92037, USA
Feared reputation
It has a reputation for systematically neglecting and brutalising inmates. Medical treatment is usually denied to inmates and food rations are said to be meagre. (The United Nations' Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners requires minimal medical treatment for all prisoners.)
Former governor
The President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, is a former Governor of Black Beach Prison and his uncle and predecessor, Francisco Macías Nguema, was executed here after he was overthrown in a 1979 coup d'état.
Prisoners
Black Beach holds a number of foreign prisoners sentenced for participating in a 2004 coup d'état attempt against the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. These included Simon Mann, the alleged ringleader, until his presidential pardon on 2 November 2009 on humanitarian grounds.