For eight months, a team of lawyers in Buea, South West Region of Cameroon has not succeeded to get their client Samuel Wazizi brought to court to stand trial. The lead lawyer Barrister Nkea Emmanuel has expressed total disappointment at the judicial service in Cameroon.
In a telephone interview with Mimi Mefo Info Tuesday June 2nd 2020, Bar. Nkea Emmanuel laments “We have filed habeas corpus applications several times for our client journalist Samuel Wazizi to be brought to court to no avail. An order from Buea High Court was issued to the commander of defense military battalion in Buea to produce Samuel Wazizi in court but he has ignored the order. The court is helpless. I’m tempted to ask why courts exist in Cameroon when their decisions cannot be respected?”
According to the lead defense lawyer, “…with the continuous denial of the military to bring our client to court, two things are running through my mind; it is either Samuel Wazizi has been killed or he is still alive and have been tortured to a state where the military is even ashamed to present him in public”.
Beside the persistent refusal to present Wazizi to Court eight months after his arrest by the police before handing to the military, Bar. Nkea regrets that he has been threatened several times by a state prosecutor.
According to him, he has been warned to abandon the case else will pay a heavy price, threats he has waved aside while insisting that justice be done and his client brought to court.
Accepting that the Buea High Court has been rendered helpless in handling the case of the journalist, Bar. Nkea Emmanuel says he is not expecting anything fruitful when the trial comes up on the 9th of June 2020.
“We are considering the option of working to seek justice through UN mechanisms. We will work with the human rights committee of the United Nations”. To him, it is evident that the rule of law has been thrown to the dogs in Cameroon.
Samuel Wazizi – a Buea based journalist was arrested in August 2019 on accusation of having links with Separatist fighters. Since his arrest, no one knows his whereabouts and all efforts to get the military present him in Court have failed.
Mimi Mefo Info.
