“In Germany, there was a very rich community who wielded all economic power,” Jean de Dieu Momo said on Sunday during a prime-time TV show on the public Cameroon radio television (Crtv) network. He added that he was referring to the Jews.

“They (the Jews) were so arrogant that the German people were frustrated. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put them in the gas chambers,” he said.

“Educated people like Mr Kamto need to know where they are leading their people,” he said.

Former government minister Maurice Kamto was arrested on January 28 in a move condemned by human rights groups. Analysts say the authorities view Kamto as a threat as he claims to have been cheated out of the presidency in last year’s elections.

The Cameroon government distanced itself from Momo amid outrage from Israel.

“The government of the republic of Cameroon would like to stress that the minister concerned was speaking in a personal capacity,” Communications Minister René Emmanuel Sadi said in a press release received by AFP on Tuesday.

The government “deplores” the deputy justice minister’s comments, but has not said if he will be disciplined.

In a press release on Monday, the Israeli embassy in Cameroon “strongly” condemned Momo’s comments, which they said “makes a tacit justification of the holocaust by Nazi Germany.”