2 SA men unlawfully detained in Equatorial Guinea return home after presidential pardon
Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham were arrested by Equatorial Guinean police on 9 February 2023 on fabricated drug trafficking charges and were subsequently sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment.
Minister of International Relations Ronald Lamola welcomed the two men home at Lanseria Airport in Johannesburg on Saturday night, following the pardon by the president of Equatorial Guinea.
On the night of 9 February 2023, the two engineers, who were on a working trip, checked into their hotel in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, and were scheduled to return home to South Africa the next morning.
But that evening, the men were separately summoned to the hotel reception, unaware that they were about to be arrested on fabricated drug trafficking charges.
Unbeknownst to them, their arrest followed South Africa's seizure of luxury assets belonging to Equatorial Guinea's vice president.
Just two days before the men were arrested, the South African courts had impounded the vice president's super yacht, and before this, South African courts had seized his two luxury villas in Cape Town.
The seizures followed a court ruling on a separate matter unrelated to the two men.
Since their arrest, the South African government had engaged through diplomatic channels, including sending special envoys to secure their release on humanitarian grounds.
In July 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the imprisonment of Potgieter and Huxham was arbitrary, unlawful, and a breach of multiple international human rights obligations and called for their immediate release.
'After two years and four months of unlawful detention, Frik and Peter are finally home,' said the families' spokesperson, Shaun Murphy.
'This brings to an end a long and painful ordeal, one marked by anguish, uncertainty and tireless efforts by so many to secure their freedom.'
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