February 9 will mark one year since two South African engineers, Frederik Potgieter (54) and Peter Huxham (55) -the latter a dual South African/UK citizen - were detained in Equatorial Guinea on drug charges, and the families are calling for the South African government to do more to help resolve the situation, as they believe the detainment was “arbitrary”.

Potgieter and Huxham were working for Dutch company SBM Offshore in Equatorial Guinea at the time of their arrest.

The pair were arrested at their hotel in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, on February 9, 2023, the night before they were due to fly back to South Africa following a five-week work rotation.

Although working for the same company for 11 and 15 years, respectively, the men had not met prior to their arrest, as they were working on two separate vessels, a statement released on February 6 points out.

They are being held in a prison reserved for political prisoners in Mongomo, having received a 12-year sentence, along with having to pay damages of $5-million each and additional fines to be shared between them, for alleged drug offences.

The judgment was passed by a bench of five judges who found them guilty of “trafficking and illicit possession of drugs (cocaine)”.

The statement says the sentence and fines are much higher than what the current Equatorial Guinea law allows.

Their trial took place in June 2023, and the statement avers that the sentence and fines were based on outdated penalties for the alleged crimes, indicating a departure from the country’s new Criminal Code.

No witnesses or expert opinions were presented to the court by the prosecutor, nor was any proof presented that the alleged drugs were found on the two men, and further, the nature of the alleged drugs was not tested, or conclusively proven, the statement reads.

According to the statement, South Africa’s reported seizure of Equatorial Guinea Vice President Teodore Nguema Obiang Mangue’s luxury villas in Cape Town and a super yacht, called Blue Shadow, belonging to him are believed to have strained relations between Equatorial Guinea and South Africa.

It postulates that the arrest of the two men, two days after the seizure of the super yacht, could point to retaliatory actions against the two South African citizens.

The families say that the detentions, which they believe are “arbitrary” under the United Nation’s (UN's) Human Rights law, are also a violation of the UN Hostage Convention.

Article 1 of the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, 1979, states: “Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereafter referred to as the “hostage”) in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, … to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage commits the offense of taking of hostages (“hostage-taking”) within the meaning of this Convention.”

Both South Africa and Equatorial Guinea are parties to the UN Hostage Convention.

The families have also expressed disappointment that the South African government has not sought to prioritise addressing the detention of the two.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (Dirco's) consular desk has arranged two visits to the men in the past year, and one call to each of their partners.

Another visit was arranged by the UK High Commissioner, where Huxham was granted a brief call to his life partner of 30 years, Kathy McConnachie.

Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963 states that countries be granted access to detainees in other countries, the statement emphasises.

The statement does not indicate if the families have requested assistance from the UK government or from the company.

In a separate statement in July last year, Dirco director-general Zane Dangor said he was “disturbed” to learn of the sentence handed down to the two, and expressed support to the families and friends of the detainees.

He expressed dismay that the South African Embassy continued to be denied access to the detainees in violation of international law.

He highlighted that the Equatorial Guinea government had failed in its obligation to formally notify Dirco and grant consular access by the embassy officials to the two South African nationals.

He emphasised that such access is expressly required by Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963, to which both States are parties despite numerous official requests in this regard.

Dirco also said in the statement that it was ready and willing to advance bilateral relations with Equatorial Guinea. However, the continued denial of access to the two South African nationals in distress compromises the long-standing good bilateral relations between the two countries, it pointed out.