Keumatio Ricardo is reported by his family members to have been arbitrarily arrested in Yaounde two months ago by a ‘malicious’ police officer whose real intentions are still not known.
Family members of Keumatio Ricardo say the police officer said he arrested Ricardo because he recognized him to be from Bamenda.
Having been taken exactly two months ago alongside four of his friends from a bar in Yaoundé, Ricardo has now been transferred from the police cell to the Kondengui central prison. Initially unaware of his whereabouts some days after his arrest, his relatives say he was held incommunicado for several days.
“For the first one week, we didn’t know of his whereabouts, only for us to later realize he was in a police cell. Despite our numerous visits there, they simply kept procrastinating his release which unfortunately never was” one of his relatives told Mimi Mefo Info.
Despite having offered money demanded by the police officers to bail him out, his relatives say it all went unaccounted for.
Ricardo was arrested on accounts of being recognized by a police officer in Bamenda probably as a separatist fighter but his relatives have maintained their brother has not been to Bamenda in a while now.
“It has been more than 10 years now since Ricardo last stepped his foot in Bamenda. He has been in Yaoundé ever since and sells roast meat by the roadside every evening at the Mvogbi neighborhood in Yaoundé,” we were told.
Since his arrest, Ricardo’s wife with his 9-months-old child has taken over his roadside business to keep the family running.
Ricardo has now been transferred to the Central Prison in Yaoundé without any investigations and only based on police claims with little or no proof whatsoever.
Could it be a case of a grave mistake of identity, or could it be score settlement with seriously malicious intent?
