MALABO / DAKAR (Sept. 18, 2026) — Amnesty International on Friday issued an Urgent Action warning that two men the United States removed to Equatorial Guinea — Egyptian national Ahmed Soliman and Eritrean national Samson Birhane — face a risk of torture after what the group calls their unlawful Sept. 11 arrest, beating, and incommunicado detention in Malabo.

The Friday filing (Index AFR 24/1476/2026) and an Associated Press report carried by ABC News frame a rights-group escalation over arrests that occurred a week earlier, not a same-day roundup. Amnesty says police covered the men’s heads with a bag, beat them on the head, back, and ribs, then held them in an overcrowded cell at the Malabo gendarmerie known as “La Luna,” without informing them of charges or allowing access to counsel.

From Hotel Bamy to La Luna

According to Amnesty’s Urgent Action PDF, Soliman and Birhane had been held at Hotel Bamy in Malabo since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights delivered them on April 29, 2026 and June 19, 2026, respectively — part of U.S. third-country removals to Equatorial Guinea that Amnesty says began after an opaque $7.5 million deal concluded in October 2025. Both men, Amnesty says, had previously been granted protection from refoulement to their countries of origin by U.S. immigration courts.

AP, citing lawyers and rights groups Friday, said officers arrested the pair on Sept. 11 on an accusation of “breaking a mirror,” then brought them back to the hotel with bags over their heads and beat them in front of other detainees before taking them to La Luna. Lawyers said they believed the arrests were retaliation for the men raising alarm about detention conditions and police violence — including videos of Soliman held at gunpoint inside the hotel that circulated in international media. Amnesty’s Friday statement likewise said officers “targeted them in reprisal for reporting the authorities’ violent threats to coerce them to agree to return to their countries of origin.”

Third-country removal, then the squeeze

AP said Soliman and Birhane are among more than 40 people deported by the United States to Equatorial Guinea, and that 12 people sent there have since been returned to their countries of origin according to lawyers — including four Ethiopians earlier this month — despite U.S. judges having protected most deportees from return to origin. Isabella Mosselmans of Global Litigation Council told AP her coalition has seen “escalating cases of police violence,” including a July 31 incident in which masked officers broke into hotel rooms, tackled detainees, and threatened them at gunpoint.

Equatorial Guinea’s government spokesman and its Washington embassy did not immediately answer comment requests in related Reuters coverage of Soliman’s custody. The pattern Amnesty describes — U.S. removal to a third country, then pressure and alleged abuse aimed at forcing onward return — is exactly the due-process gap third-country deals create when the destination was never the court-ordered home country.

Dated Friday, Sept. 18, 2026: Amnesty Urgent Action on Soliman and Birhane (arrests Sept. 11); bagged/beaten per Amnesty + lawyers; held La Luna without counsel; Hotel Bamy / ~$7.5M U.S.–Equatorial Guinea third-country deal context per Amnesty/AP.

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