The former General Manager of the National Oil Refinery, SONARA, was  on October 21, 2015, sentenced by the Special Criminal Court in Yaounde.

After a trial that lasted eight months, the Yaounde-based Special Criminal Court, SCC, on Wednesday, October 21, 2015, sentenced Charles Metouck to 15 years imprisonment. The former General Manager of the Limbe-based National Oil Refinery, SONARA, is also to pay FCFA 108 million; being the amount he and another co-accused, Edinguele Edinguele Jean Joule, embezzled. Edinguele Edinguele is to serve a 12-year jail term for the offence.

Reading out the judgement, Mr. Justice Yap Abdou, the leading judge in the trial and also President of SCC, discharged and acquitted Ngalle Mouelle Noé and Dikoume Albert Léonard for unsubstantiated evidence. Meanwhile, Metouck and Edinguele are to pay FCFA 16 million as fines and FCFA 20 million for lawyers’ honorarium. Earlier on April 22, 2015, the court dropped charges against Tiako Etienne, one of the five accused after he, in January 2015, reimbursed FCFA 108 million.

The amount was jointly embezzled by Tiako and others. The five were accused of aiding and abetting the embezzlement of over FCFA 108 million. The amount was retained from the signing by SONARA of a contract with a private company. Meanwhile, over FCFA 406 million, being taxes due to the State, was fraudulently retained by the accused, the prosecution had said.