A statement from the Center South East wing of Cameroon Bar Association indicates that the Legal Mind, Barrister Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, regained freedom Wednesday June 9, 2021.
The statement reads; “The Cameroon Bar has just obtained the release of Barrister Amungwa Nicodemus. Signed as guarantor, the President of the Bar Council, Bar. Claire ATANGANA BIKOUNA, Barrister Pierre Robert FOJOU, Representative of the President of the Center South East wing of the Bar Association and Barrister Daniel NGOS, Deputy Secretary of the Bar”.
Barrister Nicodemus Amungwa, one of the lawyers, communication and media head of the jailed Ambazonia leaders was detained for over a week at the State Secretariat for Defence, SED in Yaounde.
According to reports, the lawyer is suspected of complicity with secessionists fighting for a separate State of Ambazonia in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.
He was arrested Monday May 31, 2021 by Gendarmes Officers who said they found evidences of their claim in his phone.
The arrest and detention of the lawyer sparked reactions from across the globe.
The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), headed by Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla, in a statement described the arrest as arbitrary and called for his immediate release.
“CHRDA condemns this arrest as it is a direct attack on human rights defenders and call for his immediate release. The telephone of a lawyer as well as journalist and other human rights defenders is not subjected to any arbitrary search without a warrant. By dint of the fact that such persons deal with information which is obtained from all sources including social media, the presence of such information in their keeping must not be subjected to any criminal prosecution.”
To Human Rights Watch, an International NGO, the said evidences obtained from the phone of Barrister Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus Esq. are not enough to term him a terrorist.
The Secretary General of the PAP party, Fabrice Lena, in a recent outing said the arrest and detention of Bar. Amungwa, has killed down hopes of other Anglophone political prisoners who count much on their lawyers.
The Detention of the legal mind equally provoked reactions from his clients at the Kondengui Central Prison in Yaoundé.
Besides Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, who shamed the act, a group of Anglophone inmates (Southern Cameroon’s Detainees/Prisoners of Conscience) wrote to the State Prosector of the Yaounde Military Tribunal condemning the act threatened to boycott all court sessions related to the crisis in the restive Anglophone regions if he is not released with immediate effect.
Amongst them were Mancho Bibixy and Ngalim Felix, just to name but these.
