A prominent Cameroonian businessman was charged on Saturday with complicity in the torture of a journalist who was murdered in a high-profile case that has rocked the country, his lawyer said.
Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, who is reputedly close to ministers and senior officials, was arrested on February 6 and brought before a military court in the capital Yaounde Friday before being remanded, his lawyer said.
A source at the court confirmed the report to AFP on condition of anonymity.
The authorities did not respond to requests for comment on the charges Amougou Belinga faces.
Radio journalist Martinez Zogo, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in January, was outspoken against graft and financial sleaze and had often faced threats over his work.
Amougou Belinga, the owner of L’Anecdote media group, “was arrested… at dawn” last month, the company said.
Denis Omgba Bomba, head of the National Media Observatory, a unit attached to the communications ministry, previously confirmed the arrest and said the tycoon had been “named a suspect in the killing of Martinez Zogo”.
Zogo, 50, was the manager of the privately-owned radio station Amplitude FM and host of a daily show called “Embouteillage” (Traffic Jam).
He had frequently named Amougou Belinga in his corruption accusations.
Zogo was abducted on January 17 outside a police station in the suburbs of the capital Yaounde, and his heavily-mutilated corpse was found five days later.
Just days before he was killed, he had told listeners about threats he faced.
The murder sparked an outcry, including a protest by 20 leading Cameroonians over the government’s “long tradition of trivialising impunity and accepting atrocities”.
