By Elah Geoffrey and Doh James with reports
According to the findings of the post-mortem examination reported in a confidential document procured by The French newspaper daily, L’Anecdote, and relayed by many other organs, Bishop Bala did not commit suicide. “The body removed from the waters of the Sanaga, according to one of the members of the college of doctors, had a stiffened arm, folded on his abdomen.”
This formal post-mortem examination, according to the paper reveals that Bishop Jean Marie Benoît Bala was probably assassinated and thrown into the waters of the Sanaga less than 4 hours before the discovery of his body.
In its Monday, June 5, 2017, edition the daily newspaper L’Anecdote unveils the mysteries surrounding the death of the Bishop of Bafia, whose body was found last Friday near Monatélé three days after his disappearance and the curious discovery of his vehicle on the bridge of Ebebda, as well as a supposed suicide note which read, “I am in the water“, found on the front passenger seat.
The college of doctors who carry out the autopsy consisted of two associate professors of medicine, three sworn doctors and one appointed by the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon through its president Monsignor Kleda. The latter are representatives of the specialties of doctors concerning human anatomy. They made their report a little less than 4 hours after the body was found.
According to L’Anecdote, Bishop Bala was tortured while the rescuers were looking for him before being thrown into the Sanaga just over 19 kilometers from the bridge at Ebebda. A torture that is confirmed by the inflammation of his genitals (a bit like someone who would have undergone an electrocution). And as if that were not enough, it is proven that “the lungs of the deceased contained no drop of water.“
“To prove this,” one of the autopsy team members said, “they were thrown into a basin of water, and went up to the surface immediately. Now, for a drowned man, he would have remained at the bottom of the water. “ The state of the body also allowed the specialists to conclude that it has “spent a little less than 4 hours in the waters“, writes the newspaper.
Sources say it is on the basis of the preliminary autopsy report that a judicial inquiry for ‘’suspicious death’’ was opened by the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of the Center region, Justice Ntamark Jules which instructs the Directorate of the Judicial Police and the Central Investigation Department of the gendarmerie to carry out the investigations. The press release from the Attorney general was made public at about 6.30pm on the same day the corpse was recovered.
Suspense on the whereabouts of the Bishop was broken when his lifeless body was spotted at the river bed at about 7:30 am by a Malian Fisherman, and finally pulled out of the Sanaga River at about 11:00 am by a team of local fishermen, officers of the Navy and the National Fire Brigade that had been engaged in the research for more than 48 hours.
The body was spotted about 20 kilometers from the bridge at a portion of the river which is about one meter deep.
The convoy that accompanied the deceased body from Ebebda arrived the Yaoundé General Hospital Mortuary under tight security some two hours later amidst crowds that had assembled along the itinerary from Emana, through Etoudi, Santa Babara to the mortuary.
The Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence in charge of the National Gendarmerie, Jean Baptiste Bokam and the Governor of the Centre Region, Naseri Paul Bea were part of the accompanying officials.
After the identification of the corpse by the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, Mgr Piorro Pioppo, the President of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, Mgr Samuel Kleda, the Archbishop of Yaoundé, Mgr Jean Mbarga, the driver of late Bishop and his security personnel, the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea led special prayers at the river banks shortly after the corpse was brought out from the river. Soon after the prayer session, local traditional authorities perfumed customary rites on the corpse.
Bishop Jean Marie Balla was declared missing on Tuesday 30 May, 2017, but his land cruiser jeep with registration plate number CE 9503V was found on the Ebebda bridge on Wednesday afternoon about 90km from Yaounde, with a note in the car, his ID card, driving license and car documents.
The handwritten note on the letter head of the diocese simply read “Je suis dans l’eau”, loosely translated into English as “I am in the water”.
The note found in the bishop’s car suggested he jumped into the river” and committed suicide by drowning, as no damage was done to his car which could indicate there was violence.
It should be noted that since the death of the Bishop of Bafia a lot of speculations and rumours have inundated the airwaves and social media. Unconfirmed reports suggest that some Tsang villagers allegedly heard a noise in the early hours of Friday, of a helicopter hovering around the spot where the bishop’s body was found. The SUN has however not been able to independently confirm these reports.
In the face of these growing speculations and rumours peddling, many Cameroonians have expressed the need for the investigations to be made public and for the Catholic Church to carry out an independent investigation so as to quell some seething emotions.