SA won’t pay ‘ransom’ for release of two citizens jailed in Equatorial Guinea

The South African government is refusing to pay the “ransom” that it said the government of Equatorial Guinea was demanding for the release of two South African engineers who have been jailed for more than 500 days in Equatorial Guinea 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, Zane Dangor, the director-general of international relations and cooperation, told Parliament last week.

Pretoria clearly believes, as do Potgieter and Huxham’s families, that 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 and Cooperation last Wednesday 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.) 

Two weeks ago, Pretoria issued a demarche — a diplomatic protest — to Equatorial Guinea’s ambassador to Pretoria, 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 the capital, Malabo, to express the same concerns.

Read more: Pretoria steps up diplomatic pressure on Equatorial Guinea over imprisoned South Africans

Last week, Chrispin Phiri, the spokesperson for International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola, announced SA’s diplomatic protests publicly at a press conference.

He said the SA officials had addressed with Equatorial Guinea the Potgieter and Huxham families’ concerns, “as well as the issue of restricted access which has been granted to our officials and the families of the detained individuals”.

Dangor told the portfolio committee it was unusual for his department to make such a public statement, but South Africa felt it was necessary because even though it couldn’t prove that the arrests of Potgieter and Huxham were linked to the Cape Town High Court order, “the kinds of statement that were being made were that if you, as the South African government, undo the high court order, we will release the two men.

“Obviously, we had to indicate that we had no powers over high court decisions either here or there,” said Dangor.

Instead, South Africa had made several diplomatic interventions at official, ministerial and presidential levels to seek clemency for the two men. 

The government of Equatorial Guinea has expressed its “deepest bewilderment” at the concerns expressed by the South African government and has firmly denied that the case against Potgieter and Huxham has anything to do with the seizure of Vice-President Obiang’s possessions.

Read more: Equatorial Guinea won’t release two South Africans until vice-president gets Cape Town villas back

The central African country’s foreign ministry issued a statement in which it “disavows” the reasons for the concerns expressed by the SA government. It insisted Potgieter and Huxham were arrested and charged “for an alleged crime against public health in the form of illicit trafficking and possession of drugs, in particular cocaine, with the Equatorial Guinean state being harmed…”

It added that they were “subsequently sentenced by a final court ruling, as criminally responsible authors to 12 years of imprisonment and a fair and proportional compensation for civil liability, as established by the current Criminal Code”.

It said the two men “had adequate legal representation” throughout the case and were given “all the legal guarantees provided for in the legal system in force. They have also received regular consular assistance in accordance with the international conventions in force on the matter.”

Read more: UN demands release of SA engineers held in Equatorial Guinea

The Equatoguinean government strongly rejected any link between the case against Potgieter and Huxham “and alleged particular interests of the Equatorial Guinean authorities”.

This last point evidently referred to the suspicions of Potgieter and Huxham’s families and many others that they were arrested on 9 February 2023 because, two days before, the Western Cape High Court had impounded Obiang’s yacht after earlier ordering the seizure of his two luxury homes in Cape Town.

This was to raise the R39.9-million which the court had ordered Obiang to pay another South African, Daniel Janse van Rensburg, because of Obiang’s complicity in his illegal detention in Equatorial Guinea for about 400 days seven years ago.

Phiri told Daily Maverick that he elected not to comment on Equatorial Guinea’s statement. DM