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The Special Circuit Court for Economic and Financial Crimes sentenced on Tuesday Bakary Togola, former president of the Permanent Congress of Agricultural Chambers (Apcam) and the Confederation of Cotton Producers’ Cooperatives (C-SCPC), and his co-defendants (Soloba Mady Keita, Seydou Coulibaly, Drissa Traor, Tiass Coulibaly) to five years in prison and fined each 10 million euros. The main defendant will have to repay 7.9 billion CFA francs.
After the prosecutor and the defense filed their indictments, the court raised and answered 19 questions based on the transfer order and court debate.
First, in response to questions raised in the transfer order, the magistrate said that Bakari Togora and his 11 co-accused were not guilty of damaging public property, forging and using forged documents and conspiracy in the case of embezzling 9 billion CFA francs in cotton kickbacks paid to village associations. Therefore, the facts were reclassified as misuse of company assets in accordance with the text of the Organization for Harmonization of Commercial Law in Africa (Ohada).
The Attorney General’s Office insisted throughout the indictment that there had been an attack on public property and characterized this reclassification of the facts as an evasion of justice, while deferring to the court’s decision. Apparently, by this requalification, Bakari Togora narrowly escaped with his life.
The court, presided over by Faraj Baba, the first president of the Bamako Court of Appeal, in the name of the discretion conferred on him by article 347/2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, decided to acquit Gigiba, known as Ampha Coulibaly, Bushima Coulibaly, Madi Kita, Diarra Moussa Dembou, Alou Dembou and Mamadou Fomba.
Based on issues raised during the court debate, the members of the Court formally found Bakary Togora, Soloba Madi Coulibaly, Tias Coulibaly, Saidou Coulibaly and Drissa Traor guilty of using 7.9 billion CFA francs belonging to the cooperative for personal purposes.
It was on the basis of the facts of social abuse that the court sentenced Bakary Togola and his co-defendants (Soloba Mady Kita, Seydou Coulibaly, Drissa Traor, Tiass Coulibaly) to five years’ imprisonment each and a fine of 10 million euros.
For civil interests, in addition to compensation of 7.9 billion CFA francs, the civil party also required Bakari Togora to pay 2 billion CFA francs as compassion and to confiscate all his property.
During its deliberations, the court rejected the civil party’s claims and ordered Bakary Togola to return only the misappropriated 7.9 billion CFA francs.
Bakari Togora’s lawyers said they disagreed with the court’s decision and planned to appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the decision.
The decision itself does not satisfy us because the prosecution was based on damage to public property. And it has been proven that this was not public money. This was the cotton farmers’ money, as if Bakari Togora was being condemned for misappropriating his own money. Ultimately, that’s it. Soon after the conviction, we filed an appeal. Me Ladji Traor, one of Bakari Togora’s lawyers, suggested that we will try to understand from the appeal the different remedies available in the criminal procedure code to be able to get them out of this bad situation.
Osman Mahman
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