Captain Fotsing Benjamin, accused of torturing Ousman Haman, was acquitted on January 26 after a two-year trial before the Bafoussam Military Tribunal.
Haman and three others were arrested on April 29, 2002, and sentenced to 10 years in prison for visiting the site of a 17-year-old land dispute between Mbororo community members and multi-billionaire d'Alhaji Baba Ahmadou Danpullo.
Haman said in an e-mail that after his arrest, he was "taken to the home of this tycoon and at his instruction, I was tortured by this Captain called Benjamin Fotsing." Haman said he spent 17 days in the hospital from wounds on his buttocks and soles of his feet.
MRG, concerned that the Military Tribunal disregarded evidence of Haman’s torture and did not follow due process in the case, has highlighted a list of judicial irregularities and called for an independent appeal hearing.
"Danpullo has been using his wealth to seize peoples’ lands, seize their wives, order the torture of those who dare oppose him and send them to jail at the slightest provocation," Haman said. Danpullo is a member of the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, the political party that is currently in power.
The Mbororo are semi-nomadic cattle herders who were allocated land rights to pasture in the Northwest Province by the British before Cameroon’s independence in 1960. According to an IRIN News report in 2003, the start of the land dispute between the Mbororo and Danpullo began when he established a commercial tea ranch in Ndawara, on the fringe of Mbororo pasture territory.
The Haman case drew pressure from Amnesty International and Survival International, which persuaded the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries to send an investigative delegate to the land in dispute. IRIN reported that the investigation found that "during expansions [of Danpullo’s ranch] several [Mbororo] families have been displaced and moved along with thousands of cattle."
On March 23, 2003, Northwest Cameroon’s Court of Appeals in Bamenda freed Haman and the three others of the charges by Danpullo.
But Haman hoped Fausting would have been held accountable for the torture. "In spite of all the witnesses, in spite of all the evidences, this very court which was so anxious to jail me for ten years without ample evidence was again denying me justice by freeing the very person who was the root cause of the problems," Haman wrote in his e-mail.
Haman said that the marginalization of Mbororo and their high rate of illiteracy make them vulnerable to corrupt and exploitative officials and state agencies.
MRG has asked the government of Cameroon to allow Haman to appeal in civilian court, opposed to a Military Tribunal, and has warned that ignoring the appeal may lead to international litigation.
