SA will not pay ‘ransom’ for the release of two citizens jailed in Equatorial Guinea
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Pretoria asked for ‘mercy’ for Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham, saying they could not act outside the law to get the two South Africans home.
The South African government refuses to pay the “ransom” it said the government of Equatorial Guinea is demanding the release of two South African engineers who were jailed for more than 500 days in Equatorial Guinea on what are widely believed to be falsified charges.
“Essentially, the demand is for a ransom” to be paid for the freedom of Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham, Zane Dangor, the director general of international relations and cooperation, told parliament last week.
Pretoria, like Potgieter and Huxham’s families, clearly believes they were arrested, convicted and sentenced last year on charges of false drug possession and trafficking in retaliation for the Western Cape High Court impounding a superyacht and two luxury Cape Town houses owned by Equatorial Guinea’s playboy, Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.
Dangor told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation last Wednesday that SA would not pay a ransom because it “cannot act outside the boundaries of what is legally available to us”. He said the British government felt the same. (It’s also involved because Huxham is a dual UK-SA citizen.)
Two weeks ago, Pretoria issued a demarche – a diplomatic protest – to Equatorial Guinea’s ambassador to Pretoria, Librada Ela Asumu, summoning her to express concern about the continued detention of the two men.
SA’s ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, Nolufefe Dwabayo, visited the country’s foreign minister in the capital, Malabo, to express the same concerns.
Last week, Chrispin Phiri, the spokesperson of Ronald Lamola, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, publicly announced SA’s diplomatic protests at a press conference.
He said the SA officials had addressed the Potgieter and Huxham families’ concerns with Equatorial Guinea, “as well as the issue of limited access granted to our officials and the families of the detained individuals”.
Dangor told the portfolio committee that it was unusual for his department to make such a public statement, but South Africa felt it was necessary because even though he could not prove that the arrests of Potgieter and Huxham were linked to the Cape Town High Court order. “The kind of statements that were made were that if you, as the South African government, undo the High Court order, we will release the two men.
“Of course, we had to indicate that we have no powers over Supreme Court decisions neither here nor there,” Dangor said.
Instead, South Africa has made several diplomatic interventions at official, ministerial and presidential levels to ask for mercy for the two men.
The Equatorial Guinea government expressed its “deepest bewilderment” at the concerns expressed by the South African government and strongly denied that the case against Potgieter and Huxham had anything to do with the seizure of Vice President Obiang’s possessions.
The Central African country’s foreign ministry issued a statement “rejecting” the reasons for the concerns expressed by the SA government. It insisted that Potgieter and Huxham had been arrested and charged “for an alleged public health crime in the form of illegal trafficking and possession of drugs, particularly cocaine, with the Equatorial Guinean state being harmed…”
It added that they were “subsequently sentenced by a final court ruling, as criminally responsible authors, to 12 years’ imprisonment and a fair and proportionate compensation for civil liability, as provided by the current Criminal Code”.
The two men were said to have “had adequate legal representation” throughout the case and were given “all the legal guarantees provided in the legal system in force.” They have also received regular consular assistance in accordance with the international conventions in force on the matter.”
The Equatorial Guinean government strongly rejected any connection between the case against Potgieter and Huxham “and alleged particular interests of the Equatorial Guinean authorities”.
This last point apparently referred to the suspicions of Potgieter and Huxham’s families and many others that they were arrested on 9 February 2023 because the Western Cape High Court had impounded Obiang’s yacht two days earlier following a court order earlier ordered the seizure of his two luxury homes in Cape Town.
This was to raise the R39.9 million that the court ordered Obiang to pay another South African, Daniel Janse van Rensburg, for Obiang’s complicity in his illegal detention in Equatorial Guinea for some 400 days seven years ago.
Phiri told Daily Maverick that he chose not to comment on Equatorial Guinea’s statement. DM
source:https://volkskrag.co.za/2024/09/04/sa-sal-nie-losprys-betaal-vir-die-vrylating-van-twee-burgers-wat-in-ekwatoriaal-guinee-tronk-toe-gestuur-is-nie/
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