Arrested publisher stays longer in pre-trial detention

Lewis Medjo is now poised to spend at least a month in pre-trial detention at New Bell following the adjournment of his case to November

The trial of Lewis Medjo, publisher of La Détente newspaper Libre has been delayed till 7 November. The adjournment was pronounced last 3 October at Medjo’s first appearance at the Bonanjo Court of first instance in Douala .

The adjournment, according to court sources, is to allow time for the plaintiffs to be identified and named.

Medjo was arrested last 22 September in Douala and placed on pre-trial detention at the at the New Bell prison after a week of grilling at the Littoral judicial police headquarters.

Medjo has been formally charged with propagating fallacious information. His trial is linked to a publication in La Détente Libre edition no. 353 of 7 August 2008, which claimed that President Paul Biya had sacked Dipanda Mouelle, a Supreme Court magistrate famed for proclaiming election results in the country.

The same story was repeated in edition no.354 of the same paper, alongside another involving police chief, Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o in a plot to covertly hand back Yves Michel Fotso’s passport against a huge kickback. The passport was confiscated by the authorities in April to prevent the tycoon from fleeing the country. Fotso is under investigation for his role in the purchase of a defective presidential plane, the Albatross.

The matter has already landed some senior government officials behind bars. In a recent media outing, Fotso claimed that his father had been contacted by unnamed individuals demanding 100 million FCFA to give back the passport. According to the La Détente Libre story, Mebe Ngo’o recruited a woman described as his girlfriend to contact the Fotsos and make the proposal, using pictures of the passport, which Medjo published in his story.

Medjo’s collaborators say for several weeks before his arrest, he had been under surveillance and intense pressure by police to reveal his sources regarding both stories. He did not and was eventually arrested by elements of the Littoral judicial police in Douala led by the provincial chief, Vincent Minkoa Nga.

Meantime, a release issued Friday by the global watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), says Medjo committed no crime to warrant detention.

Courtesy, The Herald