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There is in Michel Thierry Atangana something of Joseph K., the character of Trial by Franz Kafka, crushed by the arbitrariness of an infernal judicial machine. “Seventeen years of my life were murdered and today I have no right to anything”, abstract–he in that calm voice, which seeks to explain rather than indignant. Michel Thierry Atangana would however have immense reasons to be angry. But it is perhaps there, in this softness without resignation, that lies the secret of his perseverance.
In short, the last twenty-four years of this man have been hell. It all started with his arrest in May 1997 in Cameroon. The financial engineer, who returned to his country of birth after having acquired French nationality by marriage a few years earlier, is accused of “Embezzlement of public funds” and of ” Bribery “.
But the real reasons for his imprisonment are not to be found in his management of the Franco-Cameroonian consortium responsible for the construction of highways, a post to which President Paul Biya appointed him, but in his supposed proximity to Titus Edzoa. The former secretary general of the presidency has been a political target since he decided a few days earlier to run for the presidency against Paul Biya.
“All we expect from you is to testify against Professor Titus Edzoa. (…) Professor Edzoa deserves to be sentenced to death for his treason. You are young, it would be stupid to destroy your life for him ”, intimate the investigators to him as he relates in his autobiography Judicial hostage, co-written with Anna-Véronique El Baze (Le Recherches Midi, April 2021).
In a 7 m cell2
His mother, clerk in Yaoundé, also tries to make him understand that“We do not fight against the State”. “Either you cooperate or you will disappear”, she sums up. She will die eventually ” grief “, without having convinced his son.
Abandoned by French diplomats who let him languish in a 7 m dungeon2 in the basement of the Secretary of State for Defense until the appointment in 2009 of a new ambassador, Bruno Gain, Michel Thierry Atangana finally benefited from pressure from François Hollande, which came well after those of the United States, the Nations United and Amnesty International.
On February 24, 2014, he left his cell after Paul Biya agreed to sign a sentence remission decree. After seventeen years of imprisonment, here he is in France. It is received as a symbol at the Elysée: that of a France which does not abandon its nationals. Yet another ordeal begins, less violent but just as puzzling: that of the rehabilitation and reparation of the damage suffered.
“I came out with a culprit status that does not entitle me to anything. Since I was released, I have not been entitled to unemployment, my pension rights, or health coverage. My accounts are blocked. I cannot work because my record shows a sentence of seventeen years in prison ”, tells Michel Thierry Atangana, now 57 years old, and whose ” the the first fight is for France to recognize the opinion of the United Nations which considers me a victim of arbitrary detention ”.
The battle for compensation
This is all the absurdity of his new life. While in Cameroon, in a report to the presidency on “The hidden financial stakes of the Michel Thierry Atangana affair”, the delegate general for national security recognized in December 2012 that the damage to be repaired by the State to the French companies for which he worked was assessed at ” around 278 billion CFA francs “- more than 423 million euros – no trial has been opened.
In France, on the other hand, criminal proceedings have been initiated since 2011 for “Forcible confinement, arrest without legal basis and spoliation” against several Cameroonian power barons. Justice recognized the facts but considered that“No follow-up can be considered because of the jurisdictional immunity enjoyed by the authors, co-authors and accomplices”. The judicial investigation is still in progress.
In civil proceedings, where his claim for compensation was examined on June 10, the Guarantee Fund for Victims of Acts of Terrorism and Other Offenses considered that “Mr. Atangana’s right to compensation is seriously questionable” because it invites “To rule on possible dysfunctions of a foreign judicial system”.
“There was a fault of the state apparatus and France would be honored to give redress to a Frenchman whom she abandoned in the legal twists and turns of another country, objected his lawyer Antoine Vey. Being a friend of Cameroon, diplomatic mechanisms can allow it to find a way out of this compensation. We still hope that dialogue will prevail rather than initiate long and complex procedures. “
“A magnificent fight”
The Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, for her part observed that “The only element which must determine the right to compensation is the finding of the arbitrary nature of the detention (…), unimportant that this detention was decided and implemented by the authorities of a foreign state ”.
Michel Thierry Atangana estimates his compensation at more than 1.5 billion CFA francs for his years of frozen wages and 17 billion for its foreclosed real estate. The deliberation of the crime victims compensation commission is expected on July 29.
The story of Michel Thierry Atangana is all the more emblematic as it should be at the origin of an amendment to French law. Inspired by his experience, an article was included in the bill for confidence in the judiciary, adopted on May 20 by the National Assembly. Now before the Senate, it aims to offer better protection to French victims of arbitrary detention abroad.
“1,200 French people are locked up abroad, including 500 without a known cause. When they are released and seek redress, it is important that they can rely on testimony and expert reports. (…) since the victims must prove that they were ”, pleaded before the Assembly the deputy Pierre-Alain Raphan, one of the first architects of this amendment.
“It’s a wonderful fight (…) and he deserves to triumph ”, commented in echo Eric Dupond-Moretti, the keeper of the seals… and lawyer of Michel Thierry Atangana before taking the orders of the ministry of justice. Happy that his misfortune can be useful to others, this symbol in spite of himself now only waits to resume the course of his suspended life.