According to these organisations, the deceased man had been arbitrarily detained in a gendarmerie station where he was allegedly tortured. A complaint has been filed and the NGOs are demanding the opening of an investigation.
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With our correspondent in Yaoundé, Polycarp Essomba
The facts reported by the NGOs, Mandela Center International and New Human Rights Cameroon, go back almost three months. On June 1, 2023, Olivier Ndongo Bilogo, 41, was arrested and detained in a gendarmerie brigade in Yaoundé, they argue. Then begins for the one who is presented as an electrician and in good health at the time of his arrest, various acts of torture and physical abuse that he will suffer in this post of gendarmerie, advance these NGOs.
Finally released from this police custody deemed illegal after four days, Olivier Ndongo Bilogo is interned in a hospital in Yaoundé. He will be diagnosed with serious trauma which, despite the care administered, will lead to his death on July 19.
Mandela Center and New Human Rights Cameroon affirm that the causal link between this death and the bodily services endured by the patient was formally established by a sworn doctor, which consequently leaves them with little doubt about the responsible for this death. In addition to the gendarmes who are formally indexed, these NGOs believe that the State of Cameroon is ” clearly and unambiguously also responsible for this death.
A complaint was thus lodged at the Yaoundé High Court against these designated officials for, among other things, “torture, abuse of power and arbitrary confinement”. The NGOs are also demanding that the Cameroonian authorities open an investigation into the circumstances of this death. Contacted, the Ministry of Communication and the Army Communication Service did not react.