Equatorial Guinea's flamboyant vice-president has gone trial in absentia in France on charges of corruption after he failed to stop the landmark case.
Teodorin Obiang Nguema is accused of buying a mansion and sports cars in France with a fortune amassed from oil-rich Equatorial Guinea's public funds
A lawyer for Mr Obiang, the president's son, denies he is a "big-time bandit".
The trial is the first since France started investigating African leaders accused of illegally acquiring wealth.
It comes after a nearly decade-long campaign by anti-corruption groups demanding that France act against leaders suspected of stashing their "ill-gotten gains" in Europe.
Mr Obiang's six-storey Paris villa, estimated to be worth more than $100m (£80m), is located on Avenue Foch, in one the most prestigious neighbourhoods of the French capital.
It boasts a cinema, spa, hair salon and taps covered in gold leaf
Mr Obiang's lawyer, Emmanuel Marsigny, asked the court to delay the trial, saying he needed more time to prepare his client's defence.
"Believe me, Mr Nguema is not a big-time bandit. He just wants his rights observed,"
Corruption watchdog Transparency International's lawyer William Bourdon told the court that the trial should proceed and the defence was trying to "paralyse" the judicial system through "opportunistic" and "malicious" manoeuvres
Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is Africa's longest serving leader and has been in power for three decades.
In 1979 he seized power from President Francisco Macias Nguema, who was the leader at independence and whose rule prompted a mass exodus and thousands of deaths. The former leader was tried and executed.
Equatorial Guinea's Vice PresidentTeodorin Obiang Nguema and son of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
has been resisting attempts by the US administration to seize some $71 million worth of his assets, denying charges that they were obtained with allegedly corrupt funds taken from his country.
US authorities in 2011 filed to seize a $30 million Malibu, California, oceanfront home, a $38.5 million Gulfstream jet, a Ferrari worth more than $500,000 and dozens of pieces of pop singer Michael Jackson memorabilia worth almost $2 million.
They argued that Mr Obiang obtained the items with money corruptly taken from his impoverished country through a variety of alleged schemes, including requiring companies to pay so-called taxes and fees to him as well as to make donations to his pet projects and then took those funds for his own use.
In November 2014 he was ordered by the US Justice Department to forfeit his US-based property and belongings.
Mr Obiang jnr was also facing investigation in France over money laundering claims.
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