2024-03-24 22:30:23
17 people indicted, a first crucial hearing scheduled for March 25, 2024
More than a year after the brutal assassination of journalist Martinez Zogo, which shocked all of Cameroon, the hour of truth finally seems to have come. As exclusively revealed by 237online.com, your reference media, the Yaoundé Military Court has notified 17 people charged in this sensitive case. Among them, leading figures such as businessman Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga and Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, former boss of the Directorate General of External Research (DGRE). A first hearing is scheduled for March 25, 2024, paving the way for a trial that promises to be historic.
Complicity to torture, arrest and kidnapping: Heavy charges
The charges brought against the accused demonstrate the seriousness of the alleged acts. Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga and Léopold Maxime Eko Eko are thus being prosecuted for “complicity in torture”, while journalist Bruno Bidjang, former general director of the Vision 4 media group, is charged with “ complicity in torture and arrest and sequestration”. Heavy criminal qualifications, which testify to the incredible violence which surrounded the death of Martinez Zogo, whose body was found in an advanced state of decomposition on January 22, 2023.
REDHAC and its Country-Cameroon coalition call for a transparent and fair trial
Faced with the imminent opening of this emblematic trial, human rights organizations are stepping up to demand truth and justice. In a press release published on March 19, 2024, the Network of Human Rights Defenders in Central Africa (REDHAC) and its country-Cameroon Coalition thus called for the holding of a “transparent, fair and equitable trial”, with public hearings. allowing the veil to be lifted on the exact circumstances of the journalist’s death.
Right to a fair trial, protection of rights defenders: REDHAC recommendations
But beyond the Martinez Zogo affair alone, the entire Cameroonian judicial system is being challenged. REDHAC and its Country-Cameroon Coalition therefore ask the judicial authorities to guarantee all defendants the right to a fair trial, in accordance with international standards in this area. They also call for better protection of human rights defenders, journalists and social actors, too often exposed to threats and reprisals in the exercise of their fundamental mission of information and citizen monitoring.
Despite progress, gray areas persist
If the opening of this trial marks an important step in the quest for truth and justice, many gray areas persist. Who are the real sponsors of this assassination? What are the ramifications of this affair, which seems to involve leading players in Cameroonian public and media life? So many questions which will have to be answered during the upcoming hearings, so that all light can be shed on this heinous crime which has left the Cameroonian press in mourning and shocked public opinion.
237online.com, your open window on legal news in Cameroon, will closely follow each stage of this extraordinary trial. With a leitmotif: the stubborn search for the truth, without complacency or taboo. Because it is by shedding light on the darkest pages of our history that we will build a fairer and more transparent Cameroon. A Cameroon where the press will be able to exercise its vital role of counter-power without paying the price of blood. Because the memory of Martinez Zogo, and of all the journalists who fell in the exercise of their mission, obliges us.