Mr. Jean Marie Atangana Mebara, former Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic and one-time close aide to Paul Biya has been sentenced finally by the Special Criminal Court to 25 years in prison. In June 2003, he was charged with embezzlement for the Albatross affair that has already sent Marafa and Inoni to prison. The charges read that he was involved in the 5 million US dollars (2,905,500,000 CFA) scam for the purchase of the presidential plane.
Part of the indictment statement read “rather than continuing the process of buying a new aircraft engaged a few years earlier, Jean-Marie Atangana Mebara oriented spending this bonanza to lease a used aircraft (L ‘ Albatross)”. Mebara denied such charges and said he acted on the instructions from the Head of State. BaretaNews wonders why Biya who is the principal victim, in this case, could not appear or represent in court. All if not most of the accused in their defenses sighted President Paul Biya. It was thus evident that Mr. Biya could have been invited to the court to answer charges for collaborating in defrauding the state. A functional democracy where the courts are independent could have sought the attention of the President.
However, the recent sentence is in addition to other two charges where he received 15 and 20 years respectively for embezzlement. In October 2013, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for embezzlement of 1.7 billion CFA francs in the payment of rent arrears by the defunct airline company Cameroon Airlines.
Political rights groups at the United and African nations had launched a campaign for his release. They declared he is a prisoner of conscience. This campaign has fallen on the dead ear of Mr. Biya. As far as Biya is concerned, all those involved in the purchase of the faulty plane must be punished. To Mr. Biya, it was a calculated attempt to get rid of him and his entire family through a faulty plane.
God is still saying something.
