SA refuses to budge over Equatorial Guinea prisoner saga

The SA Government is refusing to pay the ‘ransom’ it said the Government of Equatorial Guinea was demanding for the release of two SA engineers who have been jailed for more than 500 days in that country on what are widely believed to be trumped-up drug charges. ‘Essentially, the demand is for a ransom’ to be paid for the freedom of Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham, said Zane Dangor, the DG of International Relations & Co-operation. The Daily Maverick reports that Pretoria believes they were arrested, convicted and sentenced on fake drug possession and trafficking charges last year in retaliation for the Western Cape High Court impounding a superyacht and two luxury Cape Town houses owned by Equatorial Guinea’s playboy Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. Dangor told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on International Relations & Co-operation that SA would not pay a ransom because it ‘could not act outside the bounds of what is legally available to us’. He said the UK Government felt the same. It is also involved because Huxham is a dual UK-SA citizen. SA last month issued a demarche to Equatorial Guinea’s ambassador, Librada Ela Asumu, summoning her to express its concerns about the continuing detention of the two men. SA’s ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, Nolufefe Dwabayo, visited the country’s Foreign Minister in Malabo, to express the same concerns.