Families turn to Pan-African Parliament for release of pair arrested in Equatorial Guinea
South African engineers Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham have been imprisoned in Equatorial Guinea for over a year, and efforts to secure their release have so far yielded no results.
Sonja Potgieter has made an impassioned plea to South Africans to sign the petition to pressure authorities to help her bring her husband home.
Potgieter and Huxham were arrested in the Central African country in February 2023, shortly after South African authorities seized luxury assets belonging to Vice President Teodoro Obiang following a court order.
The families insist the pair are not criminals but collateral damage in the diplomatic and political dispute between the two countries.
While on a diplomatic visit to the central African country in May, former international relations and cooperation minister Naledi Pandor requested the President to intervene and ensure the release of the two men.
According to the families, they have heard very little from Dirco since.
Now, armed with nearly 5,000 signatures at the time of this report, Potgieter and Huxham’s families are hoping the Pan-African Parliament will help them return home.
In their letter to the Pan African Parliament – the families lament the lost time and what they believe was the unjust court process that saw them sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, which is four times what’s prescribed in Equatorial Guinea’s new Criminal Code.
Battling to hold back the tears, Sonja Potgieter stood side-by-side with Peter Huxham’s life partner, Kathy McConnachie, outside the Pan-African Parliament.
They last saw their partners over a year ago, and communication between them has been minimal.
Potgieter has called on South Africans to add to the signatures they have collected so far
“They need to be home. This is where they belong, not in a prison.”
The pair’s employer assembled a team of international experts who are working to secure their release, including submitting a report to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
Meanwhile, training coordinator at the Institute for Security Studies Willem Els, says while the findings of most UN bodies are not binding this move may put pressure on the president.
“It places pressure on President Obiang and his country not to be branded as a country that is abusive in terms of the judiciary and arbitrary detention of especially foreigners.”
Els describes prison conditions in that country as inhumane.
He says parties who have assisted in this case hope that the incoming Dirco minister will move this matter forward.