Equatorial Guinea releases arbitrarily detained South Africa engineers News
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Equatorial Guinea releases arbitrarily detained South Africa engineers

Engineers Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham returned home to South Africa on Sunday after serving more than two years in prison in Equatorial Guinea on seemingly arbitrary drug trafficking charges, according to a 2024 conclusion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

Potgieter and Huxham were released from prison by a presidential pardon granted by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.

In 2024, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that the arrests were made in retribution for a lawsuit against Equatorial Guinea’s Vice-President for the unlawful detention of a businessman, in which a South African court ordered the seizure of homes and a yacht owned by the Vice President.

The UN Working Group determined that the arrests violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages by not providing the arrestees confidential access to a lawyer who could speak English and the holding of the men in detention for four days before presenting the charges against them to a judge.

The governments of South Africa and the UK had been pressuring the government of Equatorial Guinea to release the men since they were detained, with South Africa’s Minister for International Relations “express[ing] its sincere gratitude to the Government of Equatorial Guinea for considering and ultimately granting this Presidential pardon.”

The men were arrested in 2023 on a work trip to the country after drugs were allegedly found in their luggage, before being sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $5 million. The government of Equatorial Guinea made no response to the UN Working Group’s conclusion, according to the BBC.