After having initially refused (March 15) to appear, the former Minister of the Environment, Oyé Guilavogui, “accepted” willingly, according to his lawyer Me Salifou Béavogui, to appear before the Court of Repression of Offenses economic and financial this Wednesday, March 22, 2023 to be heard.
Called to the bar at 1:00 p.m. by the president of the court, Alhassane Mabinty Camara, the former minister Guilavogui, by profession civil administrator, declined his identity. When the court asked him if he recognizes the facts with which he is charged, it was his counsel, Me Béa, who asked for the floor to raise objections in the ongoing proceedings and demanded respect for the various provisional release orders. . He affirms that it is with a heart “bruised that I speak, because for me it was neither the moment nor the place to evoke this file. Wisdom took the file, my client willingly agreed to appear before your court to express his feelings about the holding of this trial. This file is not called in due time. This file is in substance and form before the Supreme Court. It is after the Supreme Court that we can reveal before your chamber of judgment jurisdiction if the Supreme Court decides otherwise”.
It is for this reason that Me Salif or Béavogui asked the President of the Judgment Chamber Alhassane Mabinty Camara to stay ruling in this case until the Supreme Court examines the appeal: “I ask you to transfer this file to the Supreme Court. The appeal in cassation suspends any trial until the Supreme Court examines it”.
On the other hand, the Prosecutor Joséphine Loly Tinkiano considers that this cassation appeal procedure is purely “dilatory”. This is why, she says, there are enough elements in this file concerning Oyé Guilavogui: “We cannot oppose being judged. This approach is against the defendants who are in detention. The charges against Oyé Guilavogui are serious when we go to the merits of the case. We must moralize the public thing. He has the right to be judged. He is at our disposal. We take it when we want. The law allows us to extract it when we want because we have the public force. We cannot politicize this file because the burden is heavy. Where is the SOTELGUI that he is responsible for relaunching when he was at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications? This exception raised has no legal basis. It is a way of delaying this procedure”.
After all the interventions, the president returned the case to March 29 for deliberation.
As a reminder, Oyé Guilavogui has been in pre-trial detention at the Conakry central house since April 6, 2022 for “embezzlement of public funds, corruption, money laundering, etc.”