Yaoundé: Complaint filed against 6 police officers

Gaston Etoundi says he was assaulted on Friday, January 29, 2016, at the Mfoundi open market in Yaounde.

According to the daily newspaper Le Jour published on Thursday, February 4, 2016, he had gone to the shop at the Mfoundi market to organize the funeral of his brother, who died in December 2015.

"Etoundi Gaston said he was surprised by the arrival of eight members of his family and six armed police officers belonging to the Group of Special Operations (GSO). He accused them of having robbed him of a sum of FCFA two million," wrote the paper.

"Traders who were there thought I was a robber, why nobody reacted. The police took me to the police station at the entrance of the market, on the side of the station bridge," says the alleged victim.

According to the complainant, the police operated without notice and without a warrant. He was forced to drive to his home located at Essos and says they have handed over the sum of 500 000 FCFA in addition to 2 million FCFA. Gaston Etoundi filed a complaint against the six police officers in question and his family members for theft, abuse of office and false imprisonment at the gendarmerie brigade Soa and Mfou.

According to the complainant's family, all from the sale of family land. "We lost our little brother in the month of December [2015]. To organize the funeral, the family decided to sell a hectare of land. Gaston Etoundi had been appointed to conduct the sale transaction. When the land was sold, he did not come to report to the family," said Jacob Messinga, one of his cousins.

"We called the police because we were avoiding a fight in the market. He sold the land at 11 million FCFA, but we recovered less than two million FCFA,"adds his cousin to contradict the Complainant.