Assassination of Martinez Zogo: Suspect indicts regime barons in Reporters Without Borders report.

 In a report released Friday February 3, RSF quoted one of the suspects earlier arrested in connection to the case as having indicted some high-profile Biya regime officials in the kidnap, torture and brutal assassination of Amplitude FM Station Manager.

The report categorically indicates that the murder of the journalist was a state crime.

The report equally ties with revelations made on TV 5 Monde by the Head of both Africa Desk and Investigative Unit at Reporters Without Borders, Arnaud Froger.

Commenting on the murder of the journalist, RSF investigative journalist stated emphatically on TV 5 Monde that the assassination was carried out by officials of the country’s intelligence services.

"This crime was not committed by ordinary people or criminals who were hired from the street. It was committed by the intelligence services of Cameroon. This is a fact that has been confirmed by the investigators and confirmed by one of the witnesses who belongs to this intelligence service, which recognises its involvement as the leader of the commando, Mr. Justin Danwe," Froger said on TV 5 Monde.

The investigative piece published by Reporters Without Borders on their website revealed that many Cameroonian intelligence officers have been arrested in connection to the murder of Martinez Zogo.

The RSF report equally quotes a suspect, said to have participated “in the murder,” as having confessed that the act was ordered by a senior member of government and carried out by secret service security officers.

“More than 20 members of Cameroon’s General Directorate for External Investigations (DGRE) have been arrested in the capital in the past few days in connection to the murder of Martinez Zogo, whose mutilated body was found on 22 January,” partly read the RSF report.

The report further indicates that some DGRE officials have been arrested.

“In confessions that he hand-wrote during his interrogation, and which RSF has seen, he provided a detailed account of the gruesome operation to silence Zogo. He is the head of the unit that carried out the operation,” RSF report quotes a top DGRE official whose name we are withholding as having recounted.

The report, which has sent shockwaves down the spine of many, further quotes the suspect as having provided a “detailed description of how Zogo was followed for a week, in order to establish the pattern of his movements, until his abduction on the evening of January 17, 2023, by DRGE members…he was “reportedly taken to a building under construction that belongs” to an influential business mogul.

According to the suspect, as reported by RSF, the renowned businessman “himself then beat Zogo in the basement of his building and telephoned” a regime baron “who he is close to, to ask him what Zogo’s fate should be”.

“According to the information that RSF has obtained from a medical source, Zogo’s body was badly mutilated. Fingers were cut off, his arms and legs, were broken in several places, and a steel rod was rammed into his anus,” the report further detailed.

Ongoing investigations on the heinous act that has further tarnished the country’s image, it should be recalled, were ordered by the Head of State.

A release issued last week by the Minister of State, Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, had announced the arrest of “several individuals highly suspected of involvement” in the murder of Martinez Zogo.

The announcement however failed to disclose the number of suspects already behind bars. The release from Ngoh Ngoh had indicated that “ongoing interrogations and the ensuing judicial proceedings will help to determine the level of involvement of each suspect and establish the identities of all those connected in one way or the other with the assassination of Martinez Zogo”.

Martinez Zogo, who before his killing, served as Station Manager of Yaounde-based Amplitude FM Radio. His body was found in a state of decomposition in the locality of Ebogo, near Soa, on the outskirts of Yaounde, on January 22, 2023. This was after he went missing on January 17. 

Zogo, who also anchored popular radio program, ‘Embouteillages’, had recently commented on alleged embezzlement in public-sector procurement that benefitted some high-profile individuals.