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Martinez Zogo case in Cameroon: the conclusions presented by the investigating judge
In Cameroon, the colonel-magistrate, Pierrot Narcisse Nzie, rendered his decision on February 29: he closed the judicial investigation and now refers the Zogo case to the Yaoundé military court.
Seventeen defendants, all detained, will be tried.
A highly anticipated trial for facts ranging from conspiracy, torture and the assassination of radio host, Arsène Salomon Mbani Zogo, known as “Martinez” Zogo, in January 2023.
In the courtyard of Radio Amplitude FM, in Yaoundé, a portrait of journalist Martinez Zogo was placed to pay tribute to him, while Cameroonians lay flowers there, after his assassination, January 23, 2023. © DANIEL BELOUMOU OLOMO / AFP
By: Amélie Tulet Follow
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While waiting to know the opening date of the trial, several parties are already asking that the debates
be broadcast on radio and television
"
to avoid pressure and for the public to have a clear idea
", explains the lawyer of one of the accused.
Upon reading the settlement order which marks the end of the judicial information - in other words the investigation - by the third military investigating judge in charge of the case since the assassination
of Martinez Zogo
, the lawyers of the different parties do not hide their discomfort, each for different reasons.
“
We are relieved that the investigation is over and that we are heading towards a trial
,
”
declared Mr. Calvin Job, who represents several members of the family of the deceased Martinez Zogo.
But the judge's conclusions as presented cause him “
a lot of confusion
”
.
Why, for example, the only accused presented as possible sponsors - the former boss of the DGRE (the Cameroonian counter-espionage service), Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, and the boss of the press group L'
Anecdote
, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga - are they not accused of “
complicity in assassination
”, but only for “
complicity in torture
”?
For the defense collective of divisional commissioner Eko Eko, there was however “
a pile of irrefutable exculpatory elements
”
and “
recent developments suggested a much more objective investigation of the case
”.
Questions surrounding the date of discovery of the body
Me Charles Tchoungang, lawyer for Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, speaks
of “a forced landing
”
regarding
the findings of the military investigating judge
.
The former president of the bar is thus surprised to see on one side the final indictment of the government commissioner and on the other, the judge's order, both dated the same day, without any delay, reflection or drafting period. .
Is this a sign of haste?
The date given in the introduction for the discovery of Martinez Zogo's body is incorrect.
It is written "January 23", although it was early in the morning of Sunday January 22, 2023 that the presenter's relatives were called to identify the body discovered in Soa, in the Ebogo district, about 25 kilometers northwest of Yaoundé .
Justin Danwe and Stéphane Martin Savom indicted for complicity in assassination
As for another accused, Lieutenant-Colonel Justin Danwe, former director of operations at the DGRE, accused of complicity in kidnapping, sequestration, torture and assassination, his lawyer Mr. Jacques Mbuny believes that “
from the start, we are going to place the blame
on our client.
Justin Danwe admittedly admitted to having helped organize the operation against Martinez Zogo, but always denied that death was the aim.
“
My client is clear: there was never any question of killing Martinez Zogo.
(...) If people took his life, it was certainly other people.
There is a part of the matter that remains veiled.
»
City councilor Stéphane Martin Savom, administrative executive and mayor of Bibey, commune in the Center region, one of the last people arrested as part of the investigation, is presented by the military investigating judge as the other coordinator of the violent action taken against Martinez Zogo.
In connection with Justin Danwe, he is
referred to court
, also for complicity in kidnapping, sequestration, torture and assassination.
Read alsoAssassination of Cameroonian presenter Martinez Zogo: reclassification of charges against five people
The other defendants referred to the military court are the DGRE agents, presented as “
the big guys
” who tortured Martinez Zogo.
Among them, a “
false captain
” who allegedly played the role of bait, agents of the DGRE surveillance division, who handed over information on the geolocation of Martinez Zogo to Justin Danwe, outside the procedural framework and against the money, the owner of the 4x4 Prado who rented the vehicle to Justin Danwe, and Bruno Bidjang.
The latter is the media director of the
L'Anecdote
group , charged in this case for
“
conspiracy of torture, arrest and confinement
” for having uttered the words “
we will be merciless with him
”,
in a conversation with another media man, Paul Daizy Biya, about Martinez Zogo.
Bruno Bidjang who has also been in pre-trial detention since February 24, 2024 for “
spreading false news
” in another case.
Read alsoCameroon: one year after his death, Martinez Zogo leaves a big void and the investigation stalls
Martinez Zogo, a target “to be treated”?
Also, reading the order of reference gives details of the trap which closed on Martinez Zogo in January 2023. According to the conclusions of the investigating judge, Martinez Zogo was presented to his executioners as a target “to to treat ".
Several DGRE agents, having confessed to having participated in the ordeal, declared that the operation was “
part of the regular interventions
” that they may have to carry out, “
in accordance with the practices of the DGRE
”
.
For his part, the former boss of the institution, Divisional Commissioner Eko Eko, has always maintained, on the contrary, that he had no knowledge of the operation and that it was prepared and carried out "
outside frame
"
.
Judge Nzie, to support his decision to refer Eko Eko for trial, notes that he
"
had ordered the surveillance of the journalist by the DGRE services since 2015 as part of the "PRESS" file
", that he could not ignore the operation against Martinez Zogo, and in doing so, "
did not take any measures to prevent it and cannot (...) evade its hierarchical responsibility by means of such flimsy pretexts.”
A formulation which questions jurists
, because in criminal law, no one is responsible except for their own actions.
Also, according to the judge's order, on Tuesday January 17, 2023, after six days of shadowing, a false military security captain contacted Martinez Zogo promising him “
explosive
” revelations on the use of public funds, which would highlight cause Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga.
This false captain would have served as bait to verify the actions of Martinez Zogo.
The course of Martinez Zogo's torture
At the end of the day, the presenter leaves the Amplitudes FM editorial office, in the Elig Essono district, in downtown Yaoundé.
It was at the Nkol-Kondi gendarmerie brigade, in the suburbs of Yaoundé, that he was intercepted.
His vehicle immobilized.
His captors used an electric shock gun to numb him, then according to the confessions relayed by the investigating judge in his order, Martine Zogo was taken aboard a 4x4 Prado to a quarry.
A very listened to and popular voice, Martinez Zogo had the habit of making the sign to be silent.
© AFPTV
His clothes are torn, he is tied up with a clothesline, red oil and flour are poured over his body.
His tormentors cut his ear with a cutter, whipped him with an electric cable which they pushed into his anus.
A punitive expedition so that he stops talking about “
members of the government and authorities of the Republic
”,
writes the investigating judge.
His executioners declare that they left the scene of the torture before 10 p.m., leaving the host alive, but the exploitation of geolocation data made it possible, affirms the judge, to discover that three members of the commando returned to Ebogo, a district of the locality of Soa, the same evening around 11 p.m.,
“the place where the victim had just been left by the commando of the first operation”.
A
“ second operation coordinated like
the
first by Danwe Justin and Savom Martin, who arrived hurriedly from Bibey the day before the operation
”
,
writes the judge
.
The DGRE agents implicated “
knowing the area well, they were able to carry out the second operation and establish the secondary zone
” of which the forensic doctor had spoken.
According to the autopsy medical report
, Martinez Zogo died following “
strangulation after torture”.
Previously, Stéphane Martin Savom would have met and communicated by telephone on several occasions with Justin Danwe, according to the use of geolocation data mentioned by the judge.
On the night of the kidnapping, he “
withdrew money
”.
The investigating judge makes the link, without specifying how, between this withdrawal and the money which would have been used to pay the members of the commando.
A punitive expedition ordered by whom?
What was the final goal of the operation carried out against Martinez Zogo: to silence, scare or kill?
The investigating judge writes “
that we cannot pretend to want to inflict a simple correction on a man like Martinez Zogo (...) and to use so many well-trained “big arms” (...) moreover equipped with equipment 'proven lethality
'
.
Five days later, on the morning of Sunday January 22, 2023,
Cameroon
discovered, with horror, the images of the naked, tortured and swollen body, left on the red earth of the star presenter.
Why and on whose behalf would Justin Danwe and Stéphane Martin Savom organize such an operation against a media man?
On this subject, the order of the investigating judge recalls: Justin Danwe's statements varied.
During the investigation, the man sometimes implicated his former boss, the divisional commissioner, Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, sometimes asserted that it was Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, boss of the L'Anecdote press group who had
“
entrusted the mission of silencing Martinez Zogo, who insulted him and that session, he had given him the sum of two million FCFA
”
.
Justin Danwe will then say that the order was rather “
to intimidate him”.
Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga declared during the hearings that he was “
totally innocent
” and that the two million CFA francs given to Justin Danwe “
was not financing of the operation, but a generosity (...) to the respect of a (...) friend
”.
In his conclusions, the investigating judge indicates, however, that the video surveillance images at the businessman's office “
allow us to see that Justin Danwe was there on January 16 (…) then on the 18th”.
But “
it has been documented that this surveillance video was falsified!”
",
declares JP Amougou Belinga's lawyer, Me Charles Tchoungang.
“
We don’t understand why the judge is talking about it.
»
All parties are now awaiting the start of the hearings, which are expected to be chaired by the president of the Yaoundé military court, assisted by two civilian magistrates.
The body of Martinez Zogo is still in the morgue of the Yaoundé central hospital, awaiting the lifting of the seals.
Lawyer Jean-Pierre Manyim, who represents several of Martinez Zogo's children, hopes that in the judgment phase “
the truth will triumph
”.
Read alsoMartinez Zogo affair in Cameroon: “We have to put everything back together”, according to lawyer Claude Assira
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