Awono Trial: Appeal ruled inadmissible by court

The former Minister of Public Health who was given a 20-year sentence by the Special Criminal Court on August 2013 for the insecticide mosquito nets case, appeared before the Supreme Court on June 23, 2015, after an appeal by his counsel.

Acquitted by the same court in a case connected to the trial on grants released in 2013 by the Ministry of Health for the benefit of the Cameroon Association for Social Marketing (Acms), Urbain Olanguena Awono witnesses the reading of the ruling rejecting his appeal and declared unfounded.

Speaking after the hearing, one of the lawyers of the former Minister, Antoine Marcel Mong, requested the referral of the case for their comments.

The service provider had forged the signature of the Minister

While he was still in office, the former Minister of Public Health is suspected of embezzling in coercion, the sum of 80 million CFA francs on a delivery market (ITNs) in hospitals of the north. Indeed, in the context of this case, M. Olanguena is accused of fully paying the service provider, Yves Rodrigue Soue Mbella, who is on the run even though the latter had not executed the said contract.

At the Special Criminal Court, the lawyers of Urbain Olanguena Awono argued that the former minister had never signed documents authorizing the treasury to release the funds for the treated mosquito nets.

To make their case, they had among others alleged that Mr. Yves Rodrigue Soue Mbella could not be payed until he forged the signature of the Minister.