Committee campaign for release of political prisoners

A committee is campaigning for the freedom of political prisoners in Cameroon claiming the incarcerated former Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon meets criteria concerning policy on political imprisonment.

Former senior clerk of the State, Hamidou Yaya Marafa, Pierre Desire Engo, Urban Olanguena Awono and politicians Enoh Meyomesse and Paul Eric Kingue, Jean Marie Atangana Mebara all make up the circle of political prisoners in the country.


In a statement released last Thursday, the CL2P movement, established on May 3 in Paris, said the former secretary general “meets at least two objective criteria which have been recognised by international organisations for the defence of human rights as a prisoner of conscience; who face a multiplication of proceedings, in a sort of trial drawer whose sole purpose is to hold him without cause."


Stuck behind bars since August 2008 at the Yaoundé Central Prison, for embezzlement involving the purchase of a presidential plane, Jean Marie Atangana Mebara also considered the complaint admissible, on May 12, before the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights of African Union.


L’Ua requires release of Mebara

In its complaint, the former Foreign Minister was said to be a victim of arbitrary detention. The commission also ordered the State of Cameroon to “release them and organize trial on specific justifiable charges”, as well as pay him 800 million CFA francs as damages “for the four years of wrongful detention”.


Despite others being acquitted by the High Court in Yaoundé, May 3, 2012, of attempted diversion of $29 million for the purchase of the presidential plane, Jean Marie Atangana Mebara will remain in prison.


He will rather serve another charge in another case of embezzlement of public funds. In October 2012, he was sentenced on appeal to 15 years in prison. A year later, the Special Criminal Court imposed an additional 20 years in a case of overpayment in the settlement by the defunct Cameroon Airlines rents due to an Australian aircraft lessor.


Currently, the former aide of Cameroon President Paul Biya, is subject of a new trial in another aspect of the case of the purchase of a presidential plane. The next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday June 18 at TCS. Atangana Mebara will return to the bar after spending several weeks in Yaoundé General Hospital due to illness.