Captain Bienvenido Esono Engonga, who had been based in the city of Bata, had been fired and taken to the capital, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"We have been told that he wanted to kill the president in Bata. He has been driven to Malabo," the official said.

National radio said only that Engonga had been replaced by police officer Fortunato Nsue.

Equatorial Guinea is the continent's third-biggest oil exporter although most of its people live in poverty. It has a history of coups, the last successful one when President Teodoro Obiang Nguema toppled his uncle in 1979.

Engonga was appointed in February 2009 in a reshuffle of the security and defence ministry after an attack on presidential palace on February 17, 2009.

A cousin, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the accusations against Engonga were baseless.

"He did not want to kill the president. That is what Obiang Nguema and these people do: when they want to bring someone down, they invent something," he told AFP.

Obiang Nguema was elected to another seven-year term as president of the former Spanish colony in December with 95.73 percent of the votes. New York-based Human Rights Watch cast doubt on the credibility of the poll.

British mercenary Simon Mann led a failed coup against Obiang Nguema in 2004 and was sentenced to 34 years in jail. He and four others convicted in the affair were pardoned and released in November.

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