Amnesty International Report 1997 - Togo

Members of opposition parties, and suspected government opponents, including prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience, were detained, mainly for short periods. Most were released without charge or trial, but two remained in detention at the end of the year. An army officer detained on his return from exile and two officers who returned in 1995 remained in detention without trial. An army officer and a German diplomat appeared to have been extrajudicially executed. Following the August legislative by-elections, President Eyadema's Rassemblement du peuple togolais, Rally of the Togolese People, won the majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly. Edem Kodjo of the Union togolaise pour la démocratie (UTD), Togolese Union for Democracy, was replaced as Prime Minister by Kwassi Klutsé. In April and June, at least five people closely linked with the UTD were arrested and held for 48 hours before being released without charge. The five, all prisoners of conscience, included David Oladakoun, Seth Glé and Octave Nicoué Broohm, special adviser to Prime Minister Edem Kodjo. In May, three relatives of Komlavi Yebesse, whose photograph was published after he was tortured and shot dead in April, were arrested for giving photographs of the victim to La Tribune des Démocrates, an independent newspaper. Two of them were released after several hours, but one remained in detention for more than three days before being released without charge. In June, Eric Lawson, Director of La Tribune des Démocrates, was sentenced in absentia to five years' imprisonment. The court suspended the newspaper for six months and imposed a large fine. The director was accused of incitement to hatred, and false reporting for publishing an article describing the circumstances of Komlavi Yebesse's death. Alfred Adomayakpor, former Director of the national police and military adviser to Edem Kodjo, was arrested in July and detained for more than three months for allegedly producing a pamphlet calling on the army to rebel. He was released without charge in September. Also in July, Claude Gumedzoe, a jeweller, and Sergeant Augustin Ihou of the Togolese Armed Forces, were arrested by members of the gendarmerie because of their links with Dr David Ihou, a former Minister of Health living in exile in Benin. The exact charges against them were not known, but the Togolese authorities accused Claude Gumedzoe of possessing a firearm. At the end of the year, they remained in detention. In March, Folly Dagnon Koffi, a soldier who had fled to Ghana in 1993, was arrested on his return to Togo. He remained in detention at the end of the year, along with Adjété Ako and Djekpo Jolevi, army officers who had been arrested following their return from Benin in 1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1996). By the end of the year no charges had been brought against any of the men. There were two killings by the armed forces in circumstances suggesting possible extrajudicial executions. In January, Captain Azote, an army officer, was shot dead in Lomé by a member of the armed forces. The authorities reportedly said Captain Azote had been mistaken for a terrorist as he was wearing a gun. Captain Azote was a member of the Ligue togolaise des droits de l'homme, Togolese Human Rights League. He had been dismissed from the army after the attempted coup in 1986 but reintegrated two months before the National Conference in 1991. In March, Thomas Rupprecht, a German diplomat, was shot dead at a checkpoint by members of the armed forces when he refused to allow them to search his car.