Togo: Eighteen people arrested for "insurrection attempt" presented to the press
Lomé, Togo (PANA) - The Togolese police on Tuesday paraded 18 persons arrested for "insurgency attempt" against the Republic's institutions in Lome, the Togolese capital, and in Sokodé, in the central region of the country, on November 23.
Parading the suspects before the press, the Director General of the National Police, Lt.-Col. Yaovi Okpaoul, said members of this network belong to the movement "Tigre revolution", created less than a year ago by a certain Madjidou Toure, aka Mister Tiger, a Togolese national living in Belgium.
According to him, the movement aims to "organize a national revolution to destabilize the institutions of the Republic in three days".
On the night of November 22 to 23, the group, composed of several men, attacked gendarmes and a police station in Agoè-Nyivé, a northern suburb of Lomé, and Sokodé, a nerve center of 2017-2018 protests calling for the departure of President Faure Gnassingbé in 2020 and institutional and constitutional reforms.
The police chief said one person died and 4 wounded in the ranks of gendarmes, a truck carrying burnt clinker, cars ransacked and 4 rifles AK47 carried away.
Police accuse the Pan-African National Party (PNP), whose leader, Tchikpi Atchadam, has been in exile for more than a year.
According to Okpaoul, the suspects were recruited from the PNP located in Lomé, Sokodé, Tchamba (central region) and Anié (plateaux region).
Weapons and amulets seized from those arrested were also shown to journalists.
Fifteen people were arrested in Lomé, two in Sokodé and one in Sogakopé, Ghana.
The Pan-African National Party (PNP) have not yet reacted to these accusations.
-0- PANA FAA/JSG/SOC/KND/VAO 4Dec2019
