After more than a year of an investigation that kept the country in suspense, the Yaoundé military court formally charged seventeen people in the case of the assassination of journalist Martinez Zogo in January 2023. Among those returned on trial include the former boss of the general directorate of external research (DGRE), police commissioner Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, lieutenant-colonel Justin Danwe, former number two of the DGRE, and one of the men of the best-known and most controversial businessmen in the country, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga.
The kidnapping of Martinez Zogo and the discovery of his body marked by torture a few days later in a vacant lot in the north-eastern suburbs of Yaoundé had created a shock wave within public opinion and splashed some of the leaders of the regime. At the head of the program “Embouteillages” on Amplitude FM radio, the popular 50-year-old host denounced the acts of corruption committed by the highest personalities of the country – no powerful person was spared, except President Paul Biya, at the head of the country since 1982. One of his regular targets was Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, accused by the journalist of illegally benefiting from numerous public credit lines.
According to the referral note dated February 29 and consulted by Le Monde, Martinez Zogo was kidnapped on the orders of the businessman by a commando led by Justin Danwe. If the director of operations of the DGRE had initially admitted the facts before retracting, he is well considered by the magistrate as the henchman who mounted and coordinated the murderous operation against the journalist. He recruited three commandos, the first to follow and report the journalist’s movements, the second to arrest and torture him, and the third to eliminate him.
First prosecuted for “complicity in kidnapping and torture”, he was finally charged with more serious charges: “complicity in assassination, complicity in arrest and kidnapping, complicity in torture and violation of instructions”.
“Punitive expedition”
For the magistrate, Justin Danwe’s superior, Léopold Maxime Eko Eko, could not ignore the plan against the journalist. “Sir Léopold Maxime Eko Eko did not take any measures to prevent it and cannot therefore evade his hierarchical responsibility by means of such a web of such light pretexts,” wrote the investigating judge, Lieutenant-Colonel Narcisse Pierrot Nzié.
The all-powerful intelligence boss at the head of the DGRE since 2010, he had put Martinez Zogo under surveillance in 2015, as part of a vast program to control the country’s journalists. Accusations that Mr. Eko Eko, who has been incarcerated since his arrest on February 7, 2023, has always “denied staunchly”, underlines the referral order. The Yaoundé military court upheld the accusation of “complicity in torture” against him.
For the investigation, it is Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, indicted for complicity and co-involvement in torturing the journalist, who is the mastermind of the “punitive expedition” against Martinez Zogo. During a conversation with Justin Danwe, the boss of L’Anecdote, a major media group, and a whimsical businessman, he demanded to “silence” the journalist who was “insulting” him and then handed over 2 million CFA francs (some 3,000 euros) to the lieutenant-colonel. The latter acknowledges this bribe, but rejects having ordered the assassination of a journalist, who “represented no threat to him”, he assures.
Close in particular to the Minister of Justice Laurent Esso, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga was perceived, until his arrest in February 2023, as another untouchable, protected by his relationships within the mysteries of power. His incarceration was interpreted as one of the manifestations of the clan struggle which is tearing apart the top of the Cameroonian state, in the event of the disappearance of President Biya, aged 91. No trial date has yet been announced but, according to the civil party’s lawyer, the hearings could open in March.