Cameroon: conviction of Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o, former Minister of Defense
Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o was Minister of Defense and director of the civil cabinet of President Paul Biya (illustrative image) Getty Images/ Romilly Lockyer
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2 mins
A former heavyweight of the regime sentenced to thirty years in prison.
This is the former Minister of Defense, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o, who was also director of the civil cabinet of President Paul Biya.
Already in prison for almost 4 years, it was last night around midnight (night from Tuesday to Wednesday) that Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o and his wife were sentenced by the Special Criminal Court in charge of embezzlement issues. public in Cameroon.
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Former minister Mebe Ngo'o was found guilty of embezzling more than 23 billion CFA francs.
Money embezzled according to the Special Criminal Court through overbilling in the context of public contracts considered fictitious.
The former cacique is also found guilty of corruption, interest taking and money laundering.
His wife, Bernadette Mebe Ngo'o, also detained in Kondengui central prison since March 2019, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the embezzlement of 310 million francs.
The couple's lawyer, Pauline Noël Koe Amougou declares that she immediately filed an appeal against the judgment of the TCS.
“
Our feeling, as we said: it is about the instrumentalization of justice, unfortunately which is current in our country, justice under orders, we are going to go to the Supreme Court, although we do not no illusions, but we will go there anyway, to continue to decry the various violations of the rights of the defense as it has been since the start of this procedure.
»
Excessive procedural delays, according to the defense of the Mebe Ngo'o couple, who affirms that materially and legally, there has been no embezzlement, and that this conviction is a political decision, a settlement of scores between "
comrades of 'yesterday
'.
In this case, the Special Criminal Court also sentenced a senior officer (Lieutenant-Colonel Mboutou) and a former technical adviser to the Ministry of Defense (Maxime Mbangue) to 25 years in prison, as well as (Victor Menye) the former -deputy managing director of the SCB bank, 9 years of detention.
From state heights to descent into hell
With our correspondent in Yaoundé,
Polycarpe Essomba
Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o is firmly convinced of this, he is a victim of power struggles being played out in Yaoundé in the shadow of President Paul Biya.
Now 66 years old, he will have, after a career in the Prefectural, spent a third of his life in high office, close, even very close to the President of the Republic.
First as director of the civil cabinet for 7 times, then and respectively as head of the police and minister of defence.
It is in this ministry that he will build himself, in the eyes of the public, the stature of potential dolphin of President Biya.
In private, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o denies it, invariably proclaiming his fidelity and his loyalty to the one he considers his father.
But nothing helps.
He is perceived as concentrating too much power and influence not to think about it, even secretly.
But it is also there that he made a host of enemies within the seraglio itself, when he finally left the government in 2018, many were surprised by this misfortune, but few suspected that it had just begun for him a veritable descent into hell.
The principal concerned, however, knew himself in the sights of his opponents.
As he told the court, he said in particular that one of his former colleagues still in business had sworn his loss.
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