Nformi Sonde Kinsai and Victorine Biy Yongka
19 October 2008
Some 26 lawyers defending the SDF National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi, and 21 SDF detainees, have contested and called for the annulment of the report of the Preliminary Investigations, PI, into the murder of Grègoire Diboulé Nzali.
The PI, conducted by gendarmes and submitted to the Mfoundi High Court is being used to prosecute 21 detainees of the party for the murder of Diboulé while Fru Ndi is being charged for complicity in the murder.
Diboulé, it should be noted, was allegedly murdered on May 26 2006 in Yaounde during confrontations at a controversial party convention organised by late Prof. Clement Ngwasiri backed by Barrister Ben Muna.When the detainees were arraigned for the first time at the Mfoundi High Court on October 13, they all pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against them.
But the prosecuting lawyers headed by Barrister Innocent Bonu, immediately objected the act of detainees coming to court in the party paraphernalia noting that a political coloration is being given to a criminal case of murder. He said being in such party t-shirts, the identification of the detainees would be difficult.
Barrister Francis Sama, lead counsel of the defence team, brushed the argument relating a story of how a mechanic charged to court came in oil-stained dresses he uses at work. He said from the charge sheet submitted to the court, the detainees can adequately be identified.
And shortly after the adoption of other pre-trial formalities including the taking of an oath by the interpreters, the SDF lawyers opened hostilities. Barristers Joseph Mbah Ndam, Augustine Mbami, Lavoisier Tsapy and others took turns to point out the lopeholes in the PI report which, according to them, is contrary to the provisions of the law.
Joseph Mbah Ndam read out declarations of some of the detainees especially from Zacharie Nembot and Elias Mbah that one Colonel Chinda, who probably was given the responsibility to interrogate them, could not give them the chance to express themselves. He stated further that the said detainees were threatened with a cutlass and a gun to make declarations in response to questions asked in French, a language they don't understand.
Stating that section 121 (2) of the Penal Code is against the torture of suspects for the sake of squeezing out information, Mbah Ndam said some detainees also confessed that they were beaten to submission and declarations extorted from them by force.
Barrister Augustin Mbami said the Gendarmerie report shows that the entire PI on the purported crime was conducted on the same day that is May 26, 2006. He highlighted the impossibility of adequately interrogating the over 70 people that were reportedly arrested at the scene of the crime for a single day.
It is even alleged that people arrested and who declared for the Ngwasiri camp were released, reason why only 23 were retained in detention. [John Ngu Mbahaning died August 13, 2006, and Innocent Kom Mokto died October 4, 2008.
Mbami said, as demanded by the law, the PI report failed to indicate the names of those who conducted the investigations and their positions. He said nowhere in the report are the accused persons told of the crime they committed and for which they were being interrogated.
Urging the gendarmes and judicial police officers charged with investigations to take their work seriously, Mbami called on the judge to withdraw the report from the file, stating that such a document carries faulty information which cannot help the court.
Tsapy reminded the court of the fact that when the incident happened, the SDF took the conveners of the 'so-called Yaounde convention' notably Barrister Bernard Muna, late Clement Ngwasiri, Pascal Zamboué, and others, to court for organising an illegal manifestation, violation of private residence and orchestrating violence that led to the death of Diboulé.
He said their complaint was duly received by a judge of the Mfoundi High Court where a receipt against a sum of FCFA 300, 000, paid on behalf of the party by Barrister Tchokoungoe, was issued.
Barrister Sama intimated that all the information in the charge sheet forwarded to the court by Charles Remy Manga Foe, Judge at the Mfoundi High Court, was based on the contested PI report from the gendarmerie. He said in every criminal case, cross-examination is confrontational bringing the accused and the plaintiff face to face in order to respond to questions from the investigators.
"But this was not the case as the other party [plaintiff] was not interrogated," he stated. He also questioned the basis on which the deaf and the dumb were brought to court.On his part, Barrister Innocent Bonu argued that the PI report had not reached the judges of the court and as such the judges cannot be asked to annul a report they have never seen.
He noted that if the gendarmes and the police officers tortured the detainees in order to extort information, the said officers should be prosecuted instead of seeing the entire case on the murder of somebody being thrown out of court. Against claim by Sama that the detainees have a right to benefit fully from the new Criminal Procedure Code, CPC, Bonu argued that the law is not retroactive.
Another lawyer who backed Bonu stated that investigations against criminals accused of murder can go on for as long as 20 years and that there was still enough time for the detainees to remain in pre-trial detention for further investigation to be conducted.
The Procurer of the Republic, Maurice Soh, admitted the pertinence of the issues raised by the SDF lawyers and requested that the plaintiff be given one month to respond to the objections.Even though the SDF lawyers wanted such a response in two days, the Chief Judge, Gilbert Schilick, after consultations with both parties, adjourned the matter to October 27 when a ruling on the objections is expected to be delivered.
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