Elvis Tah
29 September 2008
The Appeal Court of Douala, Monday, September 15, ruled in favour of the corpse of one Theresia Rosaline Ngobiyaga Bieng-nee Abanda that had been lying in the Douala General Hospital mortuary for 16 months.
The Appeal Court ruling confirmed a judgement that the Douala High Court had earlier passed, ruling out the possibility of handing over the corpse of Ngobiyaga to her husband, Jean Jacques Bieng, for burial.
According to the deceased's brother, Alfred Abanda, the High Court magistrate, Eyango, based his ruling on the fact that the deceased's husband had been indicted for murdering his wife (Ngobiyaga), consequently, he should have no right of privy to the corpse.
The prolonged storage of the corpse at the Douala General Hospital mortuary was bedevilled by legal proceedings pitting the deceased's family and her husband as to who had the right to bury the corpse.
As the story goes, Theresia Ngobiyaga, fondly called Terry, of Bassa extract, died on May 3, 2007, at the age of 46, allegedly after suffering from a brain haemorrhage, which was resulted from a punch on her head delivered by her husband, during a scuffle.
Abanda told The Post that his late sister was trapped in an abusive matrimonial home, which she hid from her family and friends for over 12 years."When she died, we insisted on an autopsy and in the process we found out that she suffered internal bleeding in the brain due to a fracture on the skull.
"The pathologist, who attended to her, told us that a day before Ngobiyaga died, she was covered in a pool of blood which was oozing out of her ears."The doctor who did the autopsy said the fracture would have been caused by a fatal blow on the head. We also found out through her letters with solicitors and those of her husband that their relationship was grievously abusive, so we filed a civil complain to the Douala Judicial Police, for further investigation," said Abanda.
He stated that from the police investigation, the only person that could be indicted was the deceased's husband, Bieng."His statements to the police that the marriage ended in 2003 made it clear that he was no longer interested in it. He was questioned as to why he didn't show up for the few days that his wife was hospitalised prior to her death, and he said he wouldn't do that because his wife wouldn't have done so in his case," said Bieng.
Abanda added that while investigations were going on, Bieng wanted to bury his wife in his (Bieng's) brother's compound in their Ngambe village in Bassa land, but they (Abanda family) objected."I only got the announcement of the burial on radio one day while I was driving along the Bonaberi Bridge.
He didn't bother to contact us when he was making the burial programme and so we didn't see any reason why we should allow him bury our sister," Abanda retorted. According to him, the case was further complicated by the fact that there wasn't a formal statement or divorce proceedings and the couples were still living under the same roof. He, however, claims that there was a verbal statement of divorce which was recorded by the investigating magistrate at the Douala High Court.
"Magistrate Eyango based his ruling on the issue of marriage and the fact that at that time Bieng had been charged with the murder of his wife, he didn't see why he should have the right of privy to the corpse. Although they were legally married, the marriage had been broken irretrievably so he (magistrate) tendered the corpse to our mother.
"Bieng filed for an appeal and a stay of execution. They got the stay of execution in the Appeal Court and were also granted the right of appeal against the court's decision in October 2007," Abanda said to The Post.
He said in such a case, the judicial system allows the appellant to regularise his/her appeal papers within four months without which the case would be quashed, but Bieng only started doing that in February which was the deadline.
"There is no logic that can explain the fact that a man is interested in burying his wife without the interest of getting those appeal papers ready on time. They were just dillydallying, hoping that they could impoverish us but we just kept going until finally we had a legacy and thanks to our lawyer, Maitre Kizito Dikuba, we successfully break the deadlock," said Abanda.
Abanda also said after the second ruling, Bieng wrote a letter of intent, to take the matter to the Supreme Court and based on that, the Director of the Douala General Hospital, one Priso, tried to use the intent to prevent them from removing their sister's corpse for burial.
"It was after legal advice from Priso's jurist and the pressure we mounted upon him that he finally succumbed. He called us on Thursday night to come for the corpse. We went there on Friday, September 19, removed the corpse and transferred it to the Buea mortuary. We are also going to file a complaint against Priso."
The mortal remains of Ngobiyaga were interred at their family compound in Small Soppo Buea, on Tuesday, September 23, after a requiem mass celebrated by Rev. Father Hilary Ngome.The deceased's husband, her two kids, Astrid and Yvan, who were still with their paternal family, were at large at the time of the burial.
The Abandas have vowed to continue with criminal proceedings against Bieng, given that he has been charged with murder. "What beats my imagination in the Cameroon judicial process is the fact that Bieng has been charged with murder but he is not in police custody," Abanda wondered.
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