BANGUI, Central African
Republic
A court in Bangui provisionally released on Wednesday one of the Central African Republic's main opposition leaders and adjourned his defamation hearing until next week
International human rights
groups regularly condemn the crackdown on all opposition forces in Central
African Republic, ranked by the United Nations as one of the four least
developed in the world.
Crépin Mboli Goumba, a lawyer
and coordinator for the leading opposition forum BRDC against President Faustin
Archange Touadera, was brought before the high court after three days in
detention, facing charges of defamation and contempt of court.
After his lawyers sought to
have the case dismissed, presiding judge Matthieu Nana Bibi told the hearing
the defendant "is released provisionally on condition he does not leave
Bangui."
"I prepared myself
mentally for everything that might happen in his trial, while condemning the
breakdown in Central African justice," Mboli Goumba told the court.
He left the room to cheers and
shouts of "freed, freed" from a handful of supporters to go to sign
his release papers.
Mboli Goumba, who leads the
PATRIE party and also has US nationality, was arrested Sunday on board a flight
about to depart for Cameroon from Bangui airport.
The prosecutor's office
announced he had been detained over comments made during a February 20 press
conference, when he accused some magistrates of corruption.
He repeated the charge in a
radio interview the following day saying "justice is no longer served in
the name of the people."
Opposition gatherings are
nearly always banned in CAR where NGOs denounce threats and intimidation
against non-government politicians.
Opposition MP Dominique
Yandocka has been in detention since December 15, despite his parliamentary
immunity, accused of an attempted coup. Details of the accusation have never
been made public.
New York-based Human Rights
Watch last year said Touadera's regime "is repressing civil society, media
and opposition political parties."
HRW urged the regime "to
guarantee the independence of the justice system."
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