Missing journo 'in Cameroon'
2009-12-21 19:35
Ndjamena - The editor of a Chadian newspaper, La Voix, supposedly kidnapped in Ndjamena, is in a town in neighbouring Cameroon, the Chadian interior minister said on Monday.
A group of unidentified men in a red car kidnapped Innocent Ebode, the editor of La Voix weekly, from in front of his home at around 10:00 on Sunday, according to the newspaper's lawyer Jean-Bernard Padare.
Ebode, who is Cameroonian, was thrown out of Chad in October, officially for visa irregularities, but had returned to Ndjamena around two weeks ago, Padare said.
"The head of the publication is in Kousseri," a border town in Cameroon less than 10km from Ndjamena, Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, the Chadian interior minister, told AFP on Monday.
Bachir refused to say any more on the matter but an official source close to the Chadian authorities said Ebode had been taken back to the border for defying his expulsion order.
The source referred to "instructions" given by the judicial authorities, without giving any more details.
'Absolutely illegal'
Several Chadian judicial sources contacted by AFP said they had not been informed of any text, warrant or order referring to a possible expulsion of Ebode.
Padare said he was still in the dark about what had happened to the journalist.
"At the moment, I don't have any news at all," Padare told AFP.
"There is information suggesting he may be in Kousseri, but I don't know anything about it. We have not been able to contact him and he has not called his wife," the lawyer said.
On Sunday, Padare described Ebode's "kidnap" as an "absolutely illegal and irregular" way of silencing the privately owned newspaper.
The Chadian authorities ordered the seizing of all copies of La Voix on December 3, saying the newspaper's administration was not in order.
According to the authorities this ruling was prompted by the absence of the publication's director - Ebode.
According to Padare, Ebode's "kidnap" was aimed at stopping a legal hearing planned for this week which could have overturned the order to seize the copies of the newspaper.
Launched in May, La Voix employs around a dozen people and has a circulation of 2 000 - a sizeable number in Chad.