By Atia Tilarious Azohnwi
Anglophone detainees at the Yaoundé Central Prison in Kondengui have staged a protest against the inhumane treatment of 18 detainees transferred from the Buea Central Prison to Yaoundé on Monday, July 2. The Tuesday, July 3, 2018 solidarity protest was also intended to bring to the fore their agony.
Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor, President of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa said in a statement yesterday that the rights of Anglophone detainees are often violated with impunity.
He recounts the painful circumstances surrounding yesterday’s protest at the Kondengui Central Prison:
“18 Anglophones were transferred yesterday from Buea Central Prison to Kondengui Prison, Yaoundé. These 18 detainees are currently detained in ‘Kosovo’, a section of Kondengui maximum security prison.
“They have been kept in tight chains and were brutally tortured last night by prison guards who repeatedly called them Ambazonians. This prompted a strike action in prison by other Anglophone inmates today. One of them has a decaying wound, another is suffering with a broken arm. “As a result of pressure and the strike action by other Anglophone inmates, the prison registrar said, orders from hierarchy demanded him to keep the detainees in chains for observation.
“This is a repeated pattern of treatment upon Southern Cameroonians and alleged separatists, none of their rights are respected, presumption of innocence seems not to exist and authorities act with impunity.”
This only adds to cases of solitary confinement, denial of access to family, lawyers, medics and pastors.
Interrogation without lawyers
We learnt that Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, Wilfred Tassang, Nfor Ngalla Nfor and 44 others arrested in Nigeria and repatriated to Cameroon will be interrogated by security officials without their lawyers.
We learnt that their lawyers will only be allowed to defend them when they meet the Commissaire du Gouvernement, the state prosecutor at the Yaoundé Military Court. Though government recently allowed the accused persons access to their lawyers and family, it is however denying them access to their counsel during the preliminary investigations.
The SUN learnt that government rejected some of the lawyers proposed to defend the detainees, authorising only seven. Normal practice warrants that the accused persons be aided by their lawyers during interrogation at the level of the judicial police.
Meanwhile, Prosecutor Engono Thadée told journalducameroun.com that the Yaoundé regime had initiated a criminal procedure against the separatist activists though the process is still at the level of judicial investigations.
At this stage the interrogations are carried out by the judicial police to determine the existence or not of any offence as well as produce useful evidence for an eventual trial. It is only at the end of such interrogations that concrete charges can be brought forward or proceedings completely dropped, Engono Thasée said.
He however dismissed reports claiming Julius Ayuk Tabe, the Ambazonian leader and the 46 others have been at his office for interrogation. He made it clear that the detained can only meet the state prosecutor at the Yaoundé military court after judicial investigations must have been concluded. However, he did not give a timeframe for such investigations.Thus, it is difficult to determine when a case in court will come up against the separatist leaders but there are indications they might be charged for secession after declaring the restoration of independence of the former British Southern Cameroons on October 1, 2017.
Arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Yaoundé in January, Julius Ayuk Tabe and the 46 others were granted access to their lawyers for the first time late last month. We learnt that they are being held in separate cells and were seeing each other for the first time in five months when their lawyers visited.