Cameroon, OPéRATION éPERVIER: THE PARTICULARITIES OF YVES MICHEL FOTSO CASE
CAMEROUN :: SOCIETE

Cameroun :: Cameroon, Opération Épervier: The Particularities Of Yves Michel Fotso Case

For the first time in the history of Operation Epervier (Sparrowhawk) on the fight against corruption in Cameroon, the Yves Michel FOTSO Case presents both decisive and irrefutable evidence:

- The State of Cameroon undertook before the United States Courts not to prosecute the Director-General of Cameroon Airlines, a commitment it never respected.

- The State of Cameroon signed an agreement with the accused and violated it.

- The State of Cameroon received from the Civil Party evidence of the innocence of the accused and hid them.

I - The Case of the Presidential Plane BBJ-2

1/ The State of Cameroon represented by the Barrister Akere MUNA, Cameroon signed the Settlement Agreement in 2005 before the Bankruptcy Court of the State of Oregon in the United States, in which Cameroon acknowledged having been compensated in cash and in kind and undertook not to bring this case to court, and specifically undertook not to sue the Director-General of Cameroon Airlines.

2/ During the trial in August 2012 at the High Court of Mfoundi in Yaounde, presided over by Magistrate Gilbert SCHLICK, the main prosecution witness and who was equally Minister of the Economy and Finance at the time of the events, Mr. Michel MÉVA'A MEBOUTOU said in witness box and under oath:

"... The Director-General of CAMAIR was summoned to this meeting only to explain the innovative nature of the payment by the Stand By Letter of Credit (SBLC) and asked that the national airline company be involved in the transaction for the purchase of the Presidential Plane as a password in order to avoid undermining the programme with the IMF which did not approve that the State engages in such expenditure and I was the only one who decided to make the transfer in cash of 29 million dollars to GIA International.."

In this case of the BBJ-2, the State dishonoured its signature by violating the legal commitment it had taken in the United States by considering itself compensated. Even when the case was reopened in the criminal court in Yaounde, Section 184 of the Penal Code was violated as it stipulates that to have misappropriated, one must have taken or kept a State property. Following the testimony of the Authorising Officer for expenditure, there can be no misappropriation of 29 million Dollars without the complicity of Minister MEVA’A MEBOUTOU who acknowledged having made payment in cash, without coercion, and in opposition to the secured payment by SBLC as recommended by Mr Yves Michel FOTSO.

B – The Case of Liquidation of Cameroon Airlines

1/ Pursuant to the ruling of 2006 given by the New York District Court in the United States on the ownership of Boeing 747-300, Cameroon Airlines and the State of Cameroon both represented by the Barrister Akere MUNA signed a Settlement Agreement in the same year, in which they undertook not to no longer refer this case any other court.

By including this aspect in the 9th point of his complaint of 28 February 2012 to the High Court of Mfoundi in Yaounde, the Liquidator of CAMAIR breached this commitment.

2/ On 13 August 2013, the Liquidator of CAMAIR appointed by the State and unique Civil Party, signed a Transactional Protocol Agreement with the accused, Yves Michel FOTSO, in which he undertook to withdraw the proceedings pending in the Special Criminal Court (SCC).

By continuing to appear in Court and by associating himself with the submissions of the Public Prosecutor in both aspects of the Case, the Liquidator of CAMAIR violated his commitment to the Protocol Agreement.

3/ The Civil Party, representing CAMAIR and the State of Cameroon, without any coercion, appealed to the Minister of Justice and President of the SCC by Letters respectively dated 8 May 2014 and 21 May 2014, to acquit the accused, Yves Michel FOTSO, explaining and justifying in detail the reasons for the abandonment of his complaints. An unprecedented event, while his signature had not been questioned at the time he filed in the Letter concerning the complaint about the Civil Party and having put into action the Public Prosecutor, his petition was not taken into account, certainly, because it was clearing the accused.

4/ In the history of Opération Epervier, this is the first time that an official of a public company is accused alone and condemned, without any accomplices, for alleged misappropriation of 69 billion CFA Francs over a long period of three years, and especially as the respondent neither ordered the payments, nor signed the cheques or transfers being complained of.

5/ In the history of Opération Epervier and since the creation of the Special Criminal Court, this is the first time that an accused in agreement with the Civil Party agree to refund in full the corpus delicti and that not only do the Judges refuse to take this into account, but also condemn the accused to pay the entire initial complaint, purely and simply ignoring the billions of CFAF which have actually been received by the Civil Party.

6/ In the history of Opération Epervier, this is the first time that the accused has material evidence of the refusal to clear both from the Minister of Justice, who controls the Legal Department and the President of the Court who heads Judges of the Bench, because how do you explain the fact that Letters from the Liquidator of CAMAIR to the Keeper of the Seals and the President of the Special Criminal Court in May 2014 justifying the request to abandon the prosecution, were not included in the procedural file for the Defence to examine them as stipulated in the Act, but on the contrary, the Minister of Justice instructed the General Prosecutor of the Special Criminal Court to claim by writing the sum of 50 billion Dollars, as a precondition for eventually stopping the prosecution.

Conclusion

Who, in the light of the foregoing, can continue to support reasonably or intelligently that Mr Yves Michel Fotso is not victim of a conspiracy, a hidden harassment and which obviously has nothing to do with the search for justice and the fight against corruption or even misappropriation of public funds.

In all cases, this is the first time in the history of the management of public companies in Cameroon, that a leader successfully came to the rescue of a parastatal company whose management was entrusted to him by the Head of State, not only by putting in all his energy and intellect, but also injecting billions of CFA francs of its own money, only to end up being sentenced twice to death. /.

Prof. SHANDA TONME

Yaounde, 8 January 2017

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