The human rights organisation, Amnesty International, has appealed to the president of Equatorial Guinea, Obiang Nguema Mbagoso, to grant clemency to fifteen people sentenced to death for treason.

The secretary-general of Amnesty, Pierre Sane, said the fifteen had signed confessions extracted under torture.

The treason charges arose from separatist attacks on the island of Bioko in January, in which several members of the security forces were killed.

The defendants were accused of belonging to an illegal group the Bioko Island Movement for Self-Determination which draws its support from the minority Bubi community.