Following the recent trial of eight Nigerian nationals accused of using the Phnom Penh branch of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM) church as a front for selling methamphetamine, the church on Sunday denied any connection to the men.
Oladele Bank-Olemoh, chairman of MFM Media Committee Worldwide – a Pentecostal church founded in Yaba, Nigeria, in 1989 with branches in the US, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia – told Nigerian news outlet Sunday Punch that the men had no connection to MFM in any capacity and were lying about their roles within the church, before claiming the church was still functioning.
“The MFM church is not shut down. Our pastor is there and he’s busy in the ministry. Those arrested are not members of the church. They are neither our missionaries nor workers in the church. The MFM church is the only African church in Cambodia that many black people attend,” he said.
A man identifying himself as Ndudsi but declining to give the rest of his name said he was the pastor of the MFM branch in Phnom Penh and confirmed the church was still open.
“MFM does not know who these people are at all,” Mr. Ndudsi said. “The press does not have the correct information. These men had nothing to do with our church. They were not involved.”
The eight men – Okorom Nhabu Favor, 36, Izuchukwu Chuwuma, 40, Nnamezie Victor, 30, Simon Maduka Ukadu, 45, Sunday Nwabusi, 31, Okorom Kizito Chimedu, 35, Francis Nnamedi, 30, Tony Mmaduka Chuwuonye, 34 – were arrested along with two Cambodian women after police caught the group allegedly trafficking one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine in Phnom Penh’s Chamkarmon district in January 2015.
Mr. Victor, who called himself the leader of the MFM church in Phnom Penh during his trial, told the court he had volunteered to come to Cambodia from Nigeria as a Christian missionary in 2014 and has run the church in Chamkarmon district since then.
“Police arrested me while I was praying at my own home. They handcuffed me and called me a drug dealer,” he told the court last week. “But I don’t know anything about this case or about any drugs. I am the victim of accusations and arrest by the police.”
MFM media committee chairman Mr. Bank-Olemoh claimed that people tying the men to the church were attempting to ruin its reputation, and Mr. Bank-Olemoh went on to erroneously claim that Cambodia was a “Muslim country.”
Experts estimate that 95 percent of Cambodians practice Theravada Buddhism.
“You know, the country is a Muslim country. This could be a vendetta against the church. This case [of alleged drug trafficking] happened in 2014,” he told the news outlet. “The church was searched and nothing was found, though arrests were made outside the church.”
Police had been investigating the group for almost six months before Morn Vinyung, a 31-year-old Cambodian woman working with the men, delivered packages of drugs to undercover officers on three separate occasions.
She eventually admitted to being part of a drug ring after police raided three homes owned by the men and found six large packages of crystal methamphetamine weighing 802.44 grams, along with other drug-related paraphernalia.
The church was also raided, but no drugs were found there.
During the trial, Captain Proeung Pheap, deputy chief of the Anti-Drug Unit at the 9th Intervention Police Office in the Ministry of Interior’s anti-drug department, said the group was using the MFM church as a front for a drug ring, hiding their identities and trafficking under the guise of missionary work.
Initially, all the defendants claimed they were innocent of the charges, but over the course of the trial, some admitted to involvement in the scheme and implicated an alleged ringleader – Obieze Kenneth Uche – who is still at large.
Mr. Chimedu, Mr. Victor’s brother and an assistant at his church, said he had nothing to do with drug dealing but was arrested when police raided his home in Boeung Tumpon commune on January 8. Police found no drugs or paraphernalia at his home during their raid, he said.
“I was a church assistant, and my job was to prepare bibles and prayer ceremonies for foreigners every weekend,” he said. “I have never smoked or used drugs in my life. I’ve never even seen drugs.”
The verdict in the trial, which ended last Thursday, is expected on September 12.
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/28525/church-denies-connection-to-nigerian-drug-dealers/