Journalist Xavier Messe freed after apologising for statements made on Martinez Zogo’s murder

By Tata Mbunwe

Journalist Xavier Messe, also publisher of Le Calame newspaper, has been released from the State Secretariat of Defence, SED, in Yaounde after signing an apology statement withdrawing declarations he had earlier made on Balafon Radio about Martinez Zogo’s murder.

“I am therefore a free man, and I obtained my freedom thanks to my conscience. I was asked to write an apology letter because of <inaccurate> things I said. It was either I write the letter or I go to jail. The authorities felt that I knew too much and that I had to reveal the source of my information,” declared Xavier Messe, the editor of ‘Le Calame’ Newspaper.

On January 23, a day after Zogo’s body was found, Messe boasted during “Sacre Matin”, a programme on Balafon Radio, that he was already aware that Martinez Zogo will be killed, after the journalist’s abduction.

The statements made him a subject of investigation, as the Gendarmerie intensifies efforts to track down the Zogo’s killers.

“But I was informed since very early Wednesday morning around 5am…. He was murdered the same night around 3am and I was informed around 5am. I wasn’t woken up at around 5am by a phone call and I thought it was a hoax but if it wasn’t someone I knew well, namely my whistle blower, I would have thought it was fake news,” Xavier Messe said during his outing on Balafon Radio.

Following the statements he made, he has been summoned four times at SED to provide information about his informants on Martinez Zogo.

He was summoned on January 30 and 31, and then recently on February 20 and 21.

Mimi Mefo Info