US Edition‘Frik and Peter Are Safely Back Home’: SA Engineers Jailed in Equatorial Guinea Freed
- South African engineers Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham were released and returned home on June 21, 2025, following imprisonment in Equatorial Guinea.
- Their arrest on February 9, 2023, occurred shortly after South African authorities confiscated luxury properties linked to the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea, leading to allegations that the detention was retaliatory.
- They were found guilty of drug trafficking, received 12-year prison sentences and $5 million fines, but in July 2024, a United Nations body overseeing detention practices ruled that their imprisonment was unlawful and lacked proper judicial basis.
- The South African government expressed deep appreciation to Equatorial Guinea for granting the presidential pardon, which enabled the engineers to reunite with their families after enduring a difficult two years and four months.
- Their release followed sustained diplomatic efforts highlighting humanitarian concerns and reflects ongoing constructive dialogue between South Africa and Equatorial Guinea amid complex legal and diplomatic challenges.
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Equatorial Guinea releases arbitrarily detained South African engineers
Engineers Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham returned home to South Africa on Sunday after serving more than two years in prison in Equatorial Guinea on allegedly arbitrary drug trafficking charges, according to a 2024 conclusion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Potgieter and Huxham were released from prison by a presidential pardon granted by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. In 2024, the UN Working Group…
Engineers unlawfully detained in Equatorial Guinea released
The families of Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham confirmed on Saturday that the two South African engineers, who had been unlawfully detained in Equatorial Guinea since February 9 2023, have been released and are back in South Africa.
·Johannesburg, South Africa
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