Yaounde, Cameroon (PANA) – A former Cameroonian Minister of Public Works, Dieudonné Ambassa Zang, was on Thursday sentenced to life in prison after being convicted for the embezzlement of 5.820 billion FCFA.
The Special Criminal Court also sentenced one of his co-defendants, Felix Debeauplan Mekongo Abega, of the Ministry of Public Works, to life in prison.
The two men are on the run and were sentenced in absentia, according to reports on Friday.
The case dates back to July 2009 when Zang was Minister of Public Works and was alleged to have embezzled public funds totaling more than 8 billion CFA francs from money allocated to rehabilitate bridges on the Wouri in Douala and the Sanaga to Ebebda.
Based in France, Zang has been a political refugee since 2010.
The court, however, acquitted Scholastica Henriette Simone Bikié, Jean Robert Pierre Germain and Mengue Meka Nnah Obono of the charges. They had spent two years in custody.
Photo: Cameroononline
