A Cameroonian military court recently sentenced 25 men to 30 to 35 years in prison for participating in a 2017 assassination attempt on the president of Equatorial Guinea, who then called it a "
thwarted coup
".
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Twenty-seven were tried, one died in the meantime and another was acquitted.
Four were sentenced to 35 years and 21 to 30 years, all found guilty in particular of "
conspiracy to murder, illegal carrying and possession of weapons and munitions of war
", according to the verdict rendered on March 14 and of which AFP is informed. a copy is provided.
They were judged by the military tribunal of Yaoundé which was transported to the prison of Ebolowa, in the South, where they are detained.
In January 2018, Equatorial Guinea claimed to have foiled a December 24, 2017 "
coup
" attempt to kill President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in his palace in Koete Mongomo, about 50 km from the Cameroonian border.
» Foreigners who have come or are trying to come through Cameroon.
Over 130 convictions
On December 27, about thirty men had been captured in Cameroon near the border and elsewhere in the country, including those convicted on March 14, Equatorial Guineans, Central Africans, Cameroonians and Chadians.
They have always pleaded not guilty.
"
Their conviction is absolutely unjust, we have at no time had the production of irrefutable evidence on the facts charged
", commented Monday for AFP their lawyer Me Emmanuel Simh, who appealed the verdict.
A military source told AFP in December 2017 that some of these men, in military uniform, were heading in a bus to Equatorial Guinea near the border.
The others were arrested later in Douala and Yaoundé.
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President Obiang who, at 79 today, holds - excluding royalty - the world record for longevity in power for a living head of state, with nearly 43 years of ruling his small state with an iron fist Central African oil tanker, had hundreds of people arrested in Equatorial Guinea after the alleged coup.
More than 130 had been sentenced - half of them in absentia - to terms of 3 to 96 years in prison, Equatoguineans and foreigners, including five French.
In 2018, Malabo criticized other African countries for their "
lack of solidarity
" in dismantling the network of
alleged "
mercenaries ".
In June 2019, 11 Chadians had been sentenced to N'
2017 coup d'etat
in Equatorial Guinea.
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