In Togo, the family of businessman Bertin Agba says it is the victim of a post-mortem settling of scores

Aïssat Agba no longer knows what to answer to the nagging question from her three children: “When is dad coming home?” Cyrille, the husband of this Togolese woman living in the Paris region, has been languishing in a cell 6,500 km away in Togo since July 25. Manager of a security company in Val-d’Oise, he is accused, along with two members of his family, of “conspiracy against the internal security of the State and financing of terrorism” and faces up to 20 years in prison.

“It’s a fabricated story, denounces his wife in tears. How could he have obtained approval for his security company in France if he had links to terrorists? None of this holds up.”

The Agba family’s ordeal began at dawn on July 25. Having arrived a few days earlier without his family in Lomé, the capital, Cyrille Agba was awakened by about fifteen armed men in civilian clothes. Without ever telling him the reason for their presence, they seized computers, cell phones, printers and took him away with his nephew, Eddy Agba, and a cousin. At the same time, a few kilometers away, his sister-in-law, Françoise Agba, and the caretaker of his home suffered the same fate.

Questioned without their lawyers present in the premises of the Central Service for Criminal Research and Investigation (SCRIC), three of them learned that they were suspected of attempting to overthrow the regime. A most serious accusation in a country ruled with an iron fist for more than sixty years by the Gnassingbé family and whose current head of state, Faure Gnassingbé, adopted a new Constitution in May that could allow him to remain in power indefinitely.

“The Togolese regime is resentful and paranoid”

Behind this arrest, those close to the Agba family believe that the target was in fact the shady businessman Sow Bertin Agba, Cyrille’s brother, who died a year earlier in exile in South Africa. A successful entrepreneur in security, Sow Bertin Agba had been at the heart of an international fraud case in 2011, in which Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, the former boss of Elf Aquitaine, had been cited. Pursued by a wealthy Emirati, close to the Togolese government, who accused him of having extorted $48 million from him by pretending to be the Minister of the Interior, Sow Bertin Agba had admitted the facts.

After being granted provisional release, he then fled the country. After a stint in Ghana, he was arrested by Interpol in Athens. Despite the dispatch of a Togolese delegation to extradite him, he was able to escape again. Based in South Africa, Sow Bertin Agba died suddenly in May 2023, after lunch in a Johannesburg restaurant. “A poisoning plotted by the Togolese authorities”, say some of his supporters, not surprised by the raid on his close associates.

“The Togolese regime is resentful and paranoid. By arresting the Agba thirteen years after this story, it punishes them as if the crime of kinship existed. How can we believe that his widow, Françoise, devastated by his death, is engaged in destabilization and terrorist activities? Sticking these accusations has become a weapon for the power when it wants to eliminate enemies,” denounces an activist, who requested anonymity like many of those interviewed, for fear of reprisals.

For the authorities, however, the widow Agba appears to be the mastermind of a double terrorist attack that occurred on July 20 in the north of the country where twelve soldiers were killed. According to the report consulted by The Worldhis arrival in Togo and that of his relatives a few days before “would not be accidental.” « Bertin is said to have set aside a large portion of his assets to support what he calls “the struggle” for a change in the regime in place. “, indicate the gendarmes in charge of the hearings.

An embarrassing case for Paris

Relatives of the Agba family are worried about the fate of the prisoner, who has had an operation for cancer and is still receiving treatment. “She returned after more than ten years of exile because she thought that since her husband’s death, she was in no danger. When she arrived, she even went to the police station to renew her identity papers. Would a terrorist do that?” one of his relatives protests.

Behind these accusations where no tangible evidence has emerged – the hearing report concludes that the interrogations could not ” establish the involvement of the persons questioned in a conspiracy against the State, nor their financial support for terrorist purposes” –it is the supposed fortune of Sow Bertin Agba which seems to arouse the mistrust of the Togolese regime.

During his lifetime, the businessman lived in luxury with his two private jets and his large real estate and car fleet. But his close friends assure him that in recent years, despite his contacts with Kenyan, Ghanaian and Congolese heads of state, the successful entrepreneur has encountered serious setbacks.

“His wife came back to sell their two houses and pay their debts in South Africa. Their standard of living had plummeted. There is no hidden windfall. And Bertin had no political ambitions. He was not a threat to power,” assures one of his friends.

In this context, Aïssat Agba hopes for France’s help to obtain the release of her Franco-Togolese husband. An embarrassing issue for Paris, which is careful with its relations with Togo. On August 15, President Faure Gnassingbé was one of the few heads of state to have accepted the invitation from the Elysée to the 80^e anniversary of the landing in Provence. A precious gesture for Paris faced with the distrust of a large part of the former colonies of French-speaking Africa.

“France must not abandon my husband. He is also French. But, for the moment, he has still not received any assistance or consular visit,” regrets Aïssat Agba. When asked, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to our questions.