{"id":407,"date":"2014-09-01T06:41:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T06:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/09\/01\/in-togo-cape-verdean-adventist-pastor-imprisoned-on-dubious-charges\/"},"modified":"2014-09-01T06:41:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T06:41:53","slug":"in-togo-cape-verdean-adventist-pastor-imprisoned-on-dubious-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/in-togo-cape-verdean-adventist-pastor-imprisoned-on-dubious-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"In Togo, Cape Verdean Adventist Pastor Imprisoned on Dubious Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a027 September 2012\u00a0Silver Spring, Maryland, United States [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN]<\/span>\u00a0Seventh-day Adventist lawyers and human rights advocates are calling for the immediate release of an Adventist pastor imprisoned in Togo on what they say are spurious charges.<\/p>\n

Antonio dos Anjos Monteiro was detained in March for conspiracy to commit murder after a Togolese man implicated him and two other Christians, one an Adventist, as conspirators in an alleged blood trafficking network.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>The accuser had earlier confessed to the murder of some 20 young girls, claiming he worked for a criminal ring that trafficked human blood. The man had met Monteiro when the pastor previously ministered to him.<\/p>\n

Monteiro, a native of Cape Verde, has served as the church\u2019s Sabbath School and Personal Ministries director for the Sahel Union Mission, headquartered in Lome, Togo, since 2009.<\/p>\n

Even though a police search of Monteiro\u2019s home and local church headquarters failed to turn up evidence, local newspapers earlier this year published inflammatory photos depicting containers of blood alongside stories detailing the allegations against Monteiro.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say that Monteiro is innocent I think almost goes without saying,\u201d said Todd McFarland, an associate general counsel in the Office of General Counsel at Adventist world church headquarters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe suggestion that an Adventist pastor would hire someone to murder young girls and then traffic their blood is bizarre, fanciful and false,” he said.<\/p>\n

Public pressure to solve last year\u2019s string of murders, however, continues to thwart his release and exoneration, McFarland said.\u00a0 Prior to Monteiro\u2019s arrest, human rights groups had accused Togolese police of not doing enough to solve the crimes.<\/p>\n

In mid-September, church leaders met with government officials in Togo to expedite the case. The group included Gilbert Wari, president of the church\u2019s West-Central Africa Division, which oversees Togo; John Graz, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty director for the Adventist world church; McFarland; and a lawyer from the church\u2019s Sahel Union Mission.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201c[The lawyer] is very hopeful. She said our visit created a strong impact on the government,\u201d Wari said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first we could see that the government thought they were just dealing with a small church in the corner, but now with this level of support and mobilization, they see that the Adventist Church is a worldwide church,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Adventist Church’s top international liaison is currently working with the ambassador of Togo to help secure Monterio\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ambassador cordially welcomed me and promised to contact high level officials from the president\u2019s cabinet to facilitate the release of Pastor Monteiro,\u201d said Ganoune Diop, the church\u2019s representative to the United Nations. Diop, who met with the ambassador in July, has since requested a follow-up meeting.<\/p>\n

Graz said he wants governments to know that an innocent Seventh-day Adventist facing arbitrary detention is not alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has millions of brothers and sisters around the world ready to rally in support. We will do everything in our power to help get Monteiro released, and we are confident that justice will prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are more than 5,300 Adventist church members in Togo, and close to 880,000 in the church\u2019s West-Central Africa Division.<\/p>\n

Monteiro, who was initially held in solitary confinement in jail for 14 days, has since been transferred to the Civil Prison of Lome, where pre-trial detainees such as himself are held together with convicted felons.<\/p>\n

Despite deplorable prison conditions, Graz said Monteiro remains \u201coptimistic and in good health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly believe that Monteiro is a modern-day Joseph,\u201d Wari said, referencing a Biblical story in which an Old Testament figure is falsely imprisoned. \u201cEverything seemed desperate and hopeless, but God was working and he was able to glorify his holy name through the crisis.\u201d [ted<\/i>NEWS]<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify\u00a0ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a027 September 2012\u00a0Silver Spring, Maryland, United States [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN]<\/span>\u00a0Seventh-day Adventist lawyers and human rights advocates are calling for the immediate release of an Adventist pastor imprisoned in Togo on what they say are spurious charges.<\/p>\n

Antonio dos Anjos Monteiro was detained in March for conspiracy to commit murder after a Togolese man implicated him and two other Christians, one an Adventist, as conspirators in an alleged blood trafficking network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1577],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-organisational-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}