Two groups of Cameroonians living abroad are pushing for
President Paul Biya's eldest son to be tried in a French court for
allegedly misappropriating public funds.
The first group, One Cameroon Movement (OCM), has reportedly filed a petition early this month with France’s L’Office Central pour la Répression de la Grande Délinquance Financière (OCRGDF), which is charged with investigating financial crimes.
The weekly magazine Jeune Afrique reported
on its website on Sunday that OCRGDF had declined to confirm or deny
the existence of the petition when it was reached for comment.
OCM suspects the 42-year-old Franck Biya was hoarding ill-gotten wealth in French.
The second group, Conseil des Camerounais de la Diaspora (CDD), was reportedly putting together another petition against the same Biya son.
Two years ago, a French court threw out a similar
complaint brought by CDD against President Biya on grounds that the
latter enjoyed immunity from prosecution.
“We have learnt from our mistakes and we’re taking
our time so that the new complaint is declared admissible and a
judicial inquiry opened,” said CDD leader Robert Waffo Wanto.
Nation’s wealth
The complaint will not necessarily be lodged in
Paris, but at the locations where the petitioners believe Franck had
kept the alleged loot, Mr Wanto added.
The accusations against the president’s son are in
connection with a petition by a Cameroon-based advocacy group in early
November, which gained widespread coverage in local media.
The Alliance for the Defence of Public Property
accused the first son of stealing more than FCFA 100 billion ($197
million) in a racket involving treasury bonds.
According to the advocacy group, the president’s
son used a company specially created for the deal to buy treasury bonds
below market value, which he later overpriced at resale.
Neither President Biya nor his son have commented, but government media and officials have said the claims were unfounded.
The communication secretary of the ruling Cameroon
Peoples Democratic Movement (CPDM), Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo, dismissed
the allegations as “a macabre strategy” to discredit the government.
An unexpected trip to Cameroon by the president of
its southern neighbour Equatorial Guinea on November 30 was interpreted
by some activists to mean Biya wanted counsel on how to deal with the
petitions in France.
Equatorial Guinea’s leader Teodoro Obiang' Nguema
and his own 41-year-old son Teodorin are fighting a barrage of
accusations from France and the US that they embezzled the oil producing
nation’s wealth
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