That night, the Beninese justice sentenced the opponent to Patrice Talon, Reckya Madougou, to twenty years in prison, during a parody of the trial, according to his lawyers.
The report, for the French lawyer of Reckya Madougou, is terrible: "Tried at 6 o'clock in the morning, without witnesses, without documents, without proof", the Beninese opponent was sentenced to twenty years in prison "by three supporters of the to be able to ". Antoine Vey, who left the courtroom very early on Friday, believes that the only crime of the Beninese is "to have embodied a democratic alternative to the regime of Patrice Talon. It was feared: there is no justice in Benin ”.
Friday morning, at 9 am, at the opening of the hearing, the defense of Reckya Madougou was under no illusions: three days earlier, another opponent, Joël Aïvo, had been sentenced to ten years in prison for "endangering the security of the State" in particular. Reckya Madougou, former Minister of Justice of Benin, was accused of "financing terrorism" before a special tribunal of the Court for the Repression of Economic Crimes and Terrorism (CRIET).
"How can you put together such a story? "
An empty file, humiliating conditions of detention, according to his lawyers, but a desire to defend himself despite a justice "under orders" ... Reckya Madougou had little hope. At the helm, the Beninese opponent said he was "stunned", wondering for nine months "on how we can mount such a story". The scenario is indeed very crude: after having tried to stand, without success, in the presidential election of April 11, the Beninese woman was arrested, accused of having financed an operation which aimed to assassinate political figures.
But for CRIET, the game was settled from day one. According to our information, the defense of Reckya Madougou tried to exonerate the ex-minister by approaching witnesses, who were walled in silence under the pressure of the power in place. During the hearing, "we asked to have witnesses heard, which was immediately rejected by the court which only gave me five minutes to develop the irregularity of the file", explained the lawyer Antoine Vey. , who therefore left the courtroom on Friday morning.
A play "
Always defended by her Beninese lawyers, Reckya Madougou therefore watched helplessly at her trial. At the end of it, she therefore receives a sentence of twenty years of criminal imprisonment for "complicity in an act of terrorism". "Despite the total emptiness of her case, the procedural flaws and the inhuman treatment inflicted, she stood up, more resilient than ever, before the CRIET judges", indicates a press release from the support committee for Reckya Madougou.
For the French lawyer of Reckya Madougou, the dice were loaded: "Arrived before the 'special' jurisdiction, it was absolutely clear that it is impossible to exercise internal remedies, since the judicial system is totally infested by the power. There is no formalism, no procedure, "wrote Antoine Vey on Twitter, adding that" there are no effective rights of defense ". A "play", in the words of the lawyer, which would have been written to measure to bring down the opponent.
Abandoned by Faure Gnassingbé
Still, if a mobilization has been observed on social networks, where the hashtag #FreeReckya has flourished for the past seven days, it is the silence of some heads of state that is surprising. In particular that of Faure Gnassingbé. The accused was indeed the special advisor to the Togolese president and had a diplomatic passport, before embarking on the battle, lost in advance, of the presidential campaign.
Last May, Reckya Madougou accompanied the Togolese head of state to the funeral of former Ivorian Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly. After having resigned in order to become a candidate in Benin, Reckya Madougou was quickly accused by the Beninese authorities of being sent to campaign by the Togolese president. Reckya Madougou "arrives with suitcases of money, sponsors of heads of state of neighboring countries", lamented Patrice Talon at the time of the announcement of the candidacy of Reckya Madougou. Since then, Faure Gnassingbé has completely abandoned his ex-advisor, who could spend the next twenty years in prison.
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