*Lawyers Protest Missing Detainees
*Sisiku AyukTabe Addresses Military Court
The unfolding drama at the Yaounde military court treason trial of anglophones is unending.
The latest episode occurred on Monday, 30 July when the military judge failed to consider the language barrier between the French speaking court and the accused English-speaking persons before him.
Sisiku Julius AyukTabe and the nine other Southern Cameroons Ambazonia leaders had appeared before the court for the case that carries a maximum death sentence of terrorism, secession and other subversive charges.
Yet the court did not insist on having an interpreter to ensure that the defendants clearly and fully understood the submissions of the military prosecutors and the court.
Sisiku Julius AyukTabe, president of the virtual break away Ambazonia Republic would not let that happen. That is exactly why Sisiku AyukTabe sprang to his feet and lashed out at the lapses of the court in not considering their English language status. The court was spell bound.
Sisiku reminded the court that it is his life that is at stake. That as defendant, he is the one who will be sentenced and not even the lawyers. Reason why they must be given the right to clearly understand the court proceedings.
Red Bands for Ambazonia Prisoners
Meanwhile, the NERA10 lawyers appeared in court with red bands around their wrists generating so much nosiness amongst military judicial officials and soldiers in the court premises as well as the persons around the entrance to the court premises.
Theirs was in protest to the harsh treatment being inflicted on the rest of the anglophone detainees who were spirited away from Kondengui after their spectacular prison protest.
The lawyers as well as their NERA10 clients were not in the mood to proceed with the trial. They demanded the matter be adjourned. The court obliged.
Photographs of the lawyers int their gowns, wigs and red hand bands have now inundated social media, raising more awareness about the plight of the missing anglophone detainees.
Even on his hospital bed where he is convalescing after a brutal assault on him, Barrister Nicodemus Amungwa had red bands on his wrist in solidarity with his colleagues and their clients.
The said detainees were extracted from the Kondengui prison after their day long protest their arbitrary arrests and detentions in squalid prison conditions.
The protest had gone wrong when other inmates set fire to some prison structures and knocked down a couple of gates within the prison. The response of the response of the authorities was total.
They called in the army and police units. Gunshots and tear gas would reign for hours in the prison. In the end, many of the protesters would be bundled into military vehicles and driven away to unknown destinations. Family members have since not had access to the detainees.
Yet they say their loved ones have been taken to hell fire. They have previously heard shocking stories of torture and degrading punishments on detainees at the gendarmerie headquarters popularly known as SED. So horrendous are the testimonies of ex SED detainees that they are too graphic even for newspaper pages, one journalist said.
An ex detainee who learnt of the transfer of detainees from Kondengui to SED wept. “They have taken them from the frying pan into hot red fire.
The minister of communication, Rene Emmanuel Sadi said in a press release that 177 detainees were removed from the prison and handed over to judicial authorities for “exploitation” – a term which conjures fear among citizens who have experienced or heard about the crude methods security officers apply to extract confessions form detainees.
Despite wild rumors that some of the popular detainees have expired, minister Rene Sadi was categorical that none of them died.
In a sarcastic retort, a Yaounde resident said the minister failed to say that the detainees may not have died, yet they are now living corpses, having been battered so terribly.
To him, Kondengui Prison is luxury compared to conditions in SED where detainees are confined in bunker-like cells for months.
“Lighting is minimal and exposure to sunlight may come once in a blue moon,”
Another former SED detainee told the voice.
“I bet you, those Kondengui inmates who were relocated to SED are now burning in hell fire” he said.