12/08/2024
IT’S BEEN TWO YEARS ALREADY – A TRUE PRISONER OF
CONSCIENCE __ THE SAGA OF ABDUL KARIM ALI.
11/8/2024
Two years ago, today, Abdul Karim Ali (AKA) was illegally abducted and taken to the
Gendarmerie Stations in Bamenda where he was held incommunicado for four days. He could
neither pray nor eat.
Thereafter he was moved from one torture center to another – from the Compagnie, to
Groupement and to the Secretariat d’Etat a la Defense - SED. Finally he was moved to the
famous Kondengui Maximum Central Prison in Yaoundé.
Initially, the Ambazonian grassroots was perplexed, shocked and overtaken by the sheer
illegality, effrontery and impunity. Then shock turned into consternation and then to sorrow and
finally to desperation. Desperation has finalized into fear and condemnation. This is
despondency. This is because of the loss of a leader and a spiritual guide.
Despondency quickly turned into resoluteness and a rock-solid determination to resist, confront,
escalate and sustain all efforts and endeavors to the ultimate nirvana of getting to Buea – at all
cost. This resolute collective character is forging, morphing and crystallizing to an iron clad
personality that Ambazonia desperately needs as a nation and as a people. One of the major (if
not the lone and sole) catalyst has been AKA.
From December 2023 to date, AKA has refocused the mission of his life – which is the fight for
the total liberation of Ambazonia and the complete actualization of the deep yearning for self
determination and self-realization. AKA has single handedly reshaped the strategy and procedure
to confront his oppressors. He has rejected the jurisdiction of LRC over his person particularly
and to all Prisoners of Conscience and Prisoners of War (POC and POWs) generally. He has
formally informed, through his Counsel, the Military Tribunal, in Yaoundé that he will no longer
go to their courts. In his communication to the Court, AKA has spelled out all the demands that
he expects to receive as a kidnapped citizen of Ambazonia.
Since August 11, 2022, AKA’s Defense Team has struggled with the fragrant and blatant move,
by the system, from one illegality to another. Procedurally and substantively, the Defense Team
has witnessed the aggravation of acts of injustice and violations. From his abduction, kidnap,
detention, jurisdictional transfers, procedural hiccups and prison movements, nothing can be
reconciled on the judicial curve of procedure and process within the certainty of the Constitution,
the Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code nor all relevant international instruments
espousing the rights of an accused person and the rights of fair and public hearings. The Defense
Team is at a loss of words for the travesty of justice in AKA’s case.
When AKA was arrested he was not charged for over six months. During this period he was
interrogated almost on a daily basis as to his political opinion, associations and affiliations,
movements and locations. His house was searched and his electronic equipment confiscated and
retained without inventory. The point here is not that this process and procedure in itself, albeit
illegal, is strange and abnormal to an accustomed practitioner in the Cameroun judicial scene.
What stands out is the effrontery with which the system was FISHING FOR EVIDENCE TO
CHARGE AKA.
He has since August 11, 2022, been moved from Groupement in Mendakwe to Compagnie at the
Gendarmerie Legion in Bamenda to SED in Yaoundé and finally to Kondengui Central Prison in
Yaoundé. In these two years to the date, and counting, AKA has finally been handed a charging
document from the Examining Magistrate. He is now expected to appear before the Court but
AKA has called their bluff.
During this nightmare, the international diplomatic community, through various emissaries, with
the knowledge of AKA’s Defense Team has made attempts, through political and diplomatic
channels, to request for procedural and substantive updates from the judicial process about
AKA’s case. Through AKA’s Defense Team, there is no indication that any updates were
provided.
Today the world is waking up to the grim reality that AKA who was illegally abducted and
unjustly detained remains in Kondengui Central Prison and the world is watching and
Ambazonia is burning. The Ambazonian grassroots is bearing the brunt of an avoidable and an
uncalled for war. This grassroots is tired, fearful and helpless. AKA’s Defense Team feels
hapless like the proverbial reed in a tide. The judicial system and the political apparatus that
sustains it continues with impunity. The only stakeholder to do something is the International
Community. The Diplomats, most of whom know or have reason to know AKA personally, can
and should use their high offices to contact and talk to their Host through the different channels
that are traditional and customary to diplomatic practice – the Presidency, the Ministers of
Defense, External Relations and the Prime Ministry.
Just as AKA’s face and person is tucked away in the inhumanity of Kondengui, the Diplomatic
community can without notice or noise put the illegal arrest and unjust detention of AKA on the
front burner of all diplomatic confabs and concertations. It is the private pressure, away from the
glare of all the hardliners that will persuade the regime of Yaounde to really take a look at the
facts, or lack thereof, in the case file wherein AKA is a true Prisoner of Conscience.
Whether AKA is released or not the stark reality of the Ambazonian crisis is staring the Yaounde
regime in the face and the reality of the ever rising humanitarian crisis will sit like an ugly sore
within the diplomatic community who have a collective stake of protecting fundamental human
rights. On the contrary, if AKA is released tomorrow there will be a release of the current
pressure that is fomenting within the Ambazonian grassroots because of the incarceration of their
spiritual leader. As a bonus, the release of this pressure will serve as a mollifier and pacifier in
the quest for an appropriate setting and mindset for dialogue. This would be a double victory for
everyone even if it is two years too late.
Joseph A. Fru, Esquire
Counsel for Abdul Karim Ali
