By Joe Dinga Pefok
3-Year Jail Term
The publisher of the French language weekly, La Détente Libre, Lewis Medjo, was January 7 slammed a three-year jail term with hard labour, by the Magistrate Court Bonanjo, Douala.
The court also fined him FCFA 2 million, with an additional two-year term if he fails to pay. His lawyers, however, appealed the judgement. It would be recalled that Medjo was arrested in Douala on September 22, 2008, and charged with propagation of false information.
The case against Medjo involved Alexis Dipanda Mouelle, the President of the Supreme Court, and Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo`o, the Delegate General for National Security.
A Villain For A Father
An Air Force sergeant, Felix Moutcha, recently bound her 8-year-old daughter with chains for about a month when she expressed the wish to go their village, Mundemba, in the Southwest Region, to meet her mother who had left the father two months earlier.
The child, Nyangangi Moutcha, who could no longer go to school because her father had put her in "prison," spent the Christmas holidays in chains, as her father tied her to the bed and gave her only one miserable meal a day.
At times, The Post learnt, she spent the day without food. Following the constant crying of the child, some neighbours informed the forces of law and order on January 6 that a child was apparently in serious difficulties in the house.
The local hierarchy of the military, that was in turn informed, ordered the gendarmerie to intervene immediately. A gendarmerie squad that arrived at the camp was forced to break into the house, in the absence of the sergeant, to rescue the child. She was taken away while the sergeant was summoned for interrogation the next day.
He admitted that he tied up the daughter in a bid to prevent her from escaping to the village to meet her mother. The officials resolved to send the child to the mother although it is still unclear what they intend to do with the gendarme.
High Profile Detainee Complicates His Situation
It will henceforth be difficult for one of the high profile detainees at the New Bell Prison, James Fru, to obtain permission to go out of the prison. Fru, a former senior personnel at the Douala Treasury, has since September 17, 2008, been in detention with the former Paymaster General of Douala, Jean Louis Edou Olo`o, for alleged FCFA 1.9 billion embezzlement.
On January 1, he obtained permission to go to the "hospital", accompanied by a warder. Though the latest time for detainees out on permission to be back at the prison is 6 pm, Fru and the prison guard only returned at about 8 pm. But when some elements of 2nd Police District, which is located directly opposite the prison, spotted him, they confronted him and accused him of attempting to escape from prison.
Though the warder tried to explain, the policemen would not listen. Fru was taken to the police station. The State Counsel as well as the Registrar of the New Bell Prison was informed on the issue. They ordered for an investigation into the affair.
Boycotting ELECAM
Opposition leaders and civil society groups in Douala are so far taking different directions to mount pressure on President Biya to review the appointments of CPDM officials into Elections Cameroon, ELECAM. On January 6, Chief Albert Ngwana, the President of the Cameroon Democratic Party, CDP, declared at a press conference that if Cameroonians' protests against ELECAM fail to get Biya to review the appointments, they should boycott both ELECAM and any elections the institution organises.
However, political observers in Douala have criticised the proposal, noting that it had since been observed that when the opposition boycotts an election it is instead exploited by the ruling CPDM party to its advantage.
When the SDF boycotted the 1992 Legislative elections, the CPDM grabbed the 20 parliamentary seats in the Northwest and UNDP declared itself the second biggest political party in the country, since it was second in parliament as regarded the number of seats won at that elections.
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