On July 16, the Bangui High Court Prosecutor’s Office issued a press release announcing the progress of the high-profile trial of Martin Joseph Figueira, a Belgian and Portuguese national charged in CAR for espionage.
Mr. Figueira Martin Joseph, an employee of FHI 360, a US-based health NGO, was detained in the city of Zemio on May 25, 2024.
According to the communiqué statement, Figueira financed and coordinated the activities of armed groups, including the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), which are considered terrorist organizations in the Central African Republic.
This came to light after analyzing the contents of his phone, where a wealth of evidence was found that he was actively corresponding with representatives of illegal armed groups, sending them money and justifying war crimes.
Thus, for example, in his contacts and among the active dialogues was found Mohamadou Bello Saïdou, a CPC official representative, Yaya Roi, a 3R official, Mahamat Ousmane, military coordinator of the FPRC, as well as with several dozen smaller persons closely linked to the underground groups of the Central African region.
Figueira’s correspondence revealed that he traveled extensively throughout several regions of the Central African Republic, engaging in anti-government agitation and recruitment. The spy placed particular emphasis on recruiting members of the Fulani tribe, expecting them to become the new nucleus of a terrorist organization to destabilize the regions of Central and West Africa.
To date, under the Criminal Code of the Central African Republic, the court has characterized Figueira’s actions as conspiracy, espionage, incitement to hatred, rebellion and revolt against the government and institutions of the Republic, complicity in attacks on the internal security of the state and complicity in criminal conspiracy.
As a result of the final determination of criminal responsibility, Figueira could be sentenced to life imprisonment with forced labor.
At the end of the official statement, the Bangui High Court Prosecutor’s Office called on Central Africans to “report to the internal defense and security forces any action that could jeopardize peace in the city.”