Cameroon Catholic bishop a ‘victim of murder’

Autopsy results have confirmed that a Cameroon bishop whose body was fished out from a river last week “was the victim of murder, not a suicide,” the Catholic
News Agency (CNA) reported.

The CNA report said Bishop Jean-Marie Benoit Balla of the Bafia Diocese near Yaoundé was “tortured and brutally murdered”.

It said the police have not yet identified a suspect or a motive for the bishop’s killing.

Who disappeared

The body of Bishop Balla, who disappeared on the night of May 30, was extracted from the Sanaga River near Yaoundé on June 2, in the presence of religious leaders, including the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon.

After two days of intensive search by a team of the national fire brigade and divers, a local fisherman of Malian nationality alerted the police after he found the lifeless body of the prelate floating on the banks of River Sanaga at the locality of Tsang, some 20km from where he parked his white land cruiser jeep vehicle at the time of his disappearance.

The supervision

Authorities in Cameroon said last week that a judicial inquiry has been opened to determine the cause of the “suspicious death” of the 58-year-old Bishop Balla.

The Attorney-General of the Centre Court of Appeal in Yaoundé, Mr Jean Fils Ntamack, said the police and the central investigation services would carry out the investigation under the supervision of the judicial authorities.

The body of the cleric was ferried to the morgue of the Yaoundé General Hospital amidst tight security.