Terrorism: Cameroonian journalist, Abba appeals court’s verdict

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Terrorism: Cameroonian journalist, Abba appeals court’s verdict

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A Cameroonian journalist, Mr. Ahmed Abba, jailed for 10 years for terrorism, will appeal the verdict.The lawyer made this known Tuesday as Yaoundé military court sentenced Abba, a local reporter of Radio France Internationale (RFI) to 10 years imprisonment on charges of terrorism.Abba’s lawyer said an appeal against the verdict, strongly criticized by rights groups, would be filed.Program Coordinator, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Ms Angela Quintal said the “outrageous sentence” is a sign that Cameroon authorities were unrelenting in intimidating the media and scuttling freedom of the press.“Ahmed Abba should never have been detained, prosecuted, and convicted for his journalism”“let alone ordered to spend a decade behind bars,” Ms Angela Quintal lamented.The court has found Abba guilty of “non-denunciation of terrorism” and “laundering of the proceeds of terrorist acts” hence he could have been sentenced to death under the debated anti-terrorism law of the country. He was also requested to pay a fine of $92,000 (FCFA 55.7 million).Abba had already stayed in prison for over 633 days and had denied having any connection with Boko-Haram jihadist. The military tribunal discharged the journalist for “apologizing for acts of terrorism”.Amnesty International group said Abba’s “unfair trial” was a mockery of justice.“Ahmed Abba’s conviction, after torture and an unfair trial, is clear evidence that Cameroon’s military courts are not competent to try civilians and should not have jurisdiction in these cases,” Ms Ilaria Allegrozzi, the Amnesty International’s Lake Chad researcher said.Abba covered for RFI’s Hausa language service from Cameroon’s Boko Haram-prone area and was arrested in July 2015 on suspicion of having colluded with the Jihadist group and hoarding information in relation to his coverage of insurrection by the group from Cameroon.Abba and three other local reporters were being tried in the same court over same charges.The names of the accused are Mr Rodrique Tongue, of Le Messager daily newspaper (now working for a local TV station), Mr Felix Cyriaque Ebole Bola of Mutations daily newspaper and Dr. Baba Wame, a lecturer with the Advanced School of Mass Communication in Yaoundé, were charged with “non-denunciation” or concealing dangerous information concerning state security. All of the accused pleaded not guilty to the charges.The Cameroon parliament in 2014 passed a contentious anti-terrorism law revisiting the capital punishment in the Central African nation, whose last execution was experienced before 2017, as noted by Amnesty International.Aside this, Cameroon is a party to several regional and international laws, involving the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, protects journalists and their sources.Cameroon is placed 126th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Border’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index.

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