Bodjona beforehand ... It was under those conditions that the Applicant
was maintained in detention till
he was provisionally released
in
February 2012. The Public Prosecutor's Department wanted to avoid a
collision between the Parties or the risk of shelving the testimony of a
witness; it was absolutely necessary to hear one of the witnesses, in the
person of Minister Bodjona, before releasing the Applicant."
26. But, Judgment No. 009/12 of 23 January 2012 by the Criminal Chamber,
while making the Order for the provisional release of Sow Bertin Agba,
posed only two conditions: the payment of CFA F 150,000,000 as surety,
and also that the Applicant will be banned from going outside the
territory of Togo till further notice, for the purposes of the procedure. In
no instance was there a requirement that Minister Pascal Bodjofla had
':.
':.
to be heard first before the Applicant could be released.
.,
27. Further, Judgment No. 48/12 of 20 June 2012 by the Criminal Chamber
of the Supreme Court declared that the appeal brought by the Public
Prosecutor attached to the Court of Appeal of Lome, on the aspect of
the
case dealing
with
the
detention _of Sow Bertin Agba,
was
inadmissible. The Supreme Court declared it is forbidden to seek to
. .
.
.
.
quash a dects1on on a matter concerning preventive detention.
28. In spite of the judgments by the Criminal Chamber and by the Supreme
Court, Sow Bertin Agba was maintained in preventive detention. To
justify this detention, the Republic of Togo emphasizes that an order for
his provisional release was received at the civilian prison of Tsevie on 12
February 2013, on charges of fraud, forgery and use of fake documents,
as b:rought against him, but his release could not be secured because he
was being held for another cause.
However, the Court notes that the Republic of Togo fails to bring forth a
relevant and convincing argumentation as to what it meant by that
'other cause' for which Sow Bertin Agba continued to kept in prison.
29. The Republic of Togo, still for the purposes of justifying the detention
of the Applicant, stresses that between the time the Public Prosecutor
brought the appeal and the release of Sow Bertin Agba, the matter had
8