Goalkeeper of Norwegian Football Club is still in Minsk jail
Inmaculada Gonzales, Spanish girlfriend of the Cameroonian Guy Francois Toukam (goalkeeper of the Norwegian football club IOF) informed the Human Rights Center Viasna that she had passed the money for paying his fine and the return ticket to Spain for him (as Mr. Toukam has a Spanish residence permit) through the Honorary Consul of Spain in Minsk. Bear in mind that the goalkeeper was detained at the Minsk-2 airport ahead of the football match on suspicion in forgery of the passport.
Meanwhile, during passing a parcel to the delinquents’ isolation center in Akrestsin Street in Minsk, the duty guard informed us about receiving an answer from the Cameroonian Embassy in Russia, but told nothing about its content.
Below is an unofficial translation of the document that was passed to us from Spain:
’The consular service of the Spanish Embassy in the Russian Federation presents its respects to the Border Control Brigade of the Minsk airport and has the honor to state the following in response to its note #6/247 of 4 June 2010 concerning the detention of the Cameroonian citizen Toukam Guy Francois who was born on 7 May 1982 in the city of Duala:
’After the analysis of page #2 of the passport of the aforementioned citizen it becomes clear that the numbers of the carton and plastic parts of the page differ. However, the competent organs of Cameroon confirmed having issued passport #04/PS/46/783296 to him, on the basis of which he received residence permit #Е12303761 in Spain.
Thus, taking into account the aforementioned fact that and having no possibility to find out the truth, the consular service of the Embassy decided to use the presumption of innocence towards Mr. Toukam and issue to him a temporary document instead of the passport that cannot be used any longer.
The Embassy of the Republic of Cameroon also takes the opportunity to repeat the assurances of high respect to the Border Control Brigade of the Minsk airport.’
In her last letter, Inmaculada Gonzalez tells about her latest efforts for the release of her boyfriend: ‘The Honorary Consul of Spain in Minsk, was scheduled for an appointment with the officer (Kirill) that takes the case of Mr. Toukam, for the 2nd of July in order to release my boyfriend, but that meeting did not occur…’
She also wrote about having faxed the information about the problem of the Cameroonian sportsman to many embassies, the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the Minsk Bar Association, the Prime Minister of Belarus, President Zapatero, Vice-President de la Vega and three ministers.
Toukam’s Oslo friends Ivan and Damien and his colleagues from the football team are also concerned with his situation.
Nobody knows how much time it can take. Now Guy Francois Toukam is kept in a prison cell in Akrestsin Street without any legal aid and knows nothing about his fate.
’The problem is that the lawyer needs to know French, but there are no such lawyer. It would be very important for him to get explained what is going on. I am afraid that he does not understand what has happened, is kept in these terrible conditions, and all this can drive him insane,’ said human rights defender Valiantsin Stefanovich in an interview with the European Radio for Belarus.
Below are the copies of the documents that were passed to Belarus by the Embassy of Spain in the Russian Federation.
