For more than half a century a member of the Bongo family ruled Gabon — an oil-rich African nation covered in dense rainforest. In the past year they have fallen on harder times.
In August Ali Bongo, president since 2009, was ousted in a coup. Now a lawyer for the family claims members have been tortured into signing over property by the new military regime that are holding them incommunicado in an overcrowded jail.
Noureddin Bongo, 32, the son of the former president, is said to have been electrocuted, strangled, whipped and pounded with a hammer to surrender assets built up by the family during more than half a century in power.
Meanwhile, his mother and former first lady Sylvia Bongo, 61, held at the
