Today’s hearing at the Yaounde Military Tribunal, of Consortium leaders and about 23 other supposed activists of the on-going protests in Anglophone Cameroon has ended with the state prosecutors, agreeing to a request by the defence counsel. They denied the Ben Muna led counsel’s request for bail but agreed the court should set Barrister Felix Agbor ‘Balla’ Kongho, President of the Consortium and his Secretary General Dr Fontem Neba free on “judicial supervision”.

Legal experts say though the case was adjourned to June 7, 2017, the non-objection by the state prosecutors would, as in most cases, swerve the judge towards the prosecutors’ stance. This, they say, would mean Barrister Agbor and Dr Fontem would be freed from jail but their movements will be limited to specific areas and they will be expected to appear in court whenever summoned by the judge.

Liberated on “judicial supervision”, we learned, also means, the suspects may have to provide a certain sum of money to be decided by the judge or provide a certain number of sureties which number is left at the discretion of the judge.

The other suspects including radio animator, Mancho Bibixy were denied both bail and freedom on judicial supervision. We gathered the President and Secretary General of the Consortium were considered for the temporal liberation because of their professional and social backgrounds.

Col Abega Eko Eko Mbazoa will rule on today’s request on June 7. It should be noted that both protests leaders have been in pre-trial detention since January 17.