A popular Cameroon radio journalist who had been missing following what a media rights group called an abduction has been found dead, his employer and police said on Sunday.

Martinez Zogo was managing director of Yaounde-based private radio station Amplitude FM and the star host of a popular daily programme, Embouteillage (Gridlock).

On the air, the 51-year-old regularly tackled cases of corruption, not hesitating to question important personalities by name. He had been missing since Tuesday. According to RSF, police in a Yaounde suburb heard a loud noise outside their police station and found Zogo’s badly damaged car at approximately 8pm (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday.

Police saw a black vehicle … driving off. They later came to realize this was an abduction,” the organization said.

Zogo’s colleague, Charlie Amie Tchouemou, editor-in-chief of Amplitude FM, confirmed Zogo’s abduction and subsequent death. The police and the government have not commented yet. The death of Zogo was confirmed to AFP by a police source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A large crowd gathered as Zogo’s body was taken to the morgue of Yaounde central hospital for an autopsy, a member of the victim’s family told AFP on condition of anonymity. Social media has been awash with posts following his disappearance with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemning “the brutal abduction of a journalist”.

“There are many grey areas regarding the circumstances of his brutal abduction,” Sadibou Marong, head of the sub-Saharan Africa office of RSF, told AFP. “The authorities must launch a rigorous, thorough and independent investigation to establish the full chain of responsibility and the circumstances that led to this sad event,” Marong said.

Cameroon’s national journalists’ union condemned a “heinous assassination” and urged media workers to wear black on January 25 as a sign of mourning. The political opposition was also indignant, with Social Democratic Front (SDF) deputy Jean-Michel Nintcheu denouncing a “crime which cannot go unpunished”.

On Sunday, several Cameroonian television channels dedicated their programmes to Zogo’s death. Cameroonian-French writer Calixthe Beyala said she was “dejected, saddened” by news of his death. “I knew he was dead as soon as it was announced that he was kidnapped,” she told Info TV.

“We can ask ourselves the question: whose turn is it? Each of us can find ourselves in this situation for something that we might have said.”

 

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Piers Potter

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