In a technical development, the former director general of the Republican police, Philippe Houndégnon gives his technical opinion on the procedure that led to the arrest of Steve Amoussou.
The Steve Amoussou case continues to generate a lot of ink and saliva. Questioned on the issue, Philippe Houndégnon gave his technical opinion on the procedure for arresting an individual and handing him over to the public prosecutor.
The officer of the Republican police forced into compulsory retirement said that for a legal procedure to be valid, it must meet certain conditions. In the case of the Steve Amoussou case, the first condition is that of the right of seizure. To exercise this control, one must have the status of a civil servant of the Republican police or at least that of a law enforcement agent and benefit from a requisition from a judicial police officer (OPJ) or that of the public prosecutor or an investigating judge.
The second condition mentioned by Philippe Houndégnon relates to the procedure that must result in the presentation of the accused to the public prosecutor. According to the former DGPN, the second operation that must be reflected in the report is the notification of the arrest. And one must necessarily be an OPJ to make this notification.
The normal procedure for the arrest of Mr. Steve Amoussou
To proceed with the arrest of Steve Amoussou, the Police must have the documents (a court warrant) that allow them to travel. They must therefore necessarily inform the public prosecutor and the national Interpol of Benin for the liaison with the national Interpol of Lomé within the framework of the request for Police cooperation.
It is from there that the judicial Police officer of the Benin Interpol will distribute the red bulletin indicating that a particular person must be arrested. The Police officers must therefore receive mission orders and travel to Lomé. Once in Lomé, it is not up to them to arrest the accused. But it is the Togolese Police officers who take charge of it.
Once arrested, it is only at the Hillacondji border that Steve Amoussou is handed over to the Beninese Police authorities with a report of the handover of the offender from Police to Police as part of Police cooperation between the two States.
This is where the Beninese Police take over and direct Steve Amoussou to the competent structure to receive him. If the seizure-transport documents, report of the handover of the offender from police to police did not exist, insists Philippe Houndégnon, the Commissioner who agrees to keep the accused has a problem.
According to him, the absence of these documents constitutes a cause for nullity of the arrest which remains an irregular arrest because the procedure is flawed. A public prosecutor, he indicates, cannot receive a person whose arrest procedure is irregular. The constitutional judge, he specifies, is very rigorous on the issue.
The former DGPN believes that his opinion remains technical because he is not in the secret of the gods to know the conditions in which the public prosecutor received Mr. Steve Amoussou. For him, the days to come will be rich in revelations.
But on the technical level, if a prosecutor receives an individual whose arrest procedure is flawed, the latter can refer the matter to the administrative justice system for poor functioning of the judicial administration. And if he is finally convicted, he can file a complaint for assault which is an imprescriptible crime, suggested the Police officer who retired early.
*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga
Source : https://beninwebtv.com
Bénin Web TV (BENIN)
