CAT/C/45/D/344/2008
took their canoe fishing in the Bé lagoon. They noticed two lorries parked near the lagoon.
Hearing the sound of items falling into the water, they switched on their electric torches. It
was then that the complainant and his father saw men in military uniform throwing bodies
into the water. Of the seven or eight soldiers present, they recognized two who lived in the
same neighbourhood as themselves, behind Bé Château. Distressed, the complainant and
his father called out to the soldiers, who then shone a torch at them. The two soldiers
known to the complainant and his father also recognized them and called out to them by
name. Three soldiers jumped into the water and headed towards them. The complainant and
his father also jumped into the water in an attempt to swim away. As he escaped, the
complainant looked over his shoulder and saw his father between two soldiers. He heard his
father call out for help, but, believing that he could not be of any help to him, he continued
swimming. When the complainant reached the opposite bank, he threw off his clothes. He
then ran all the way to the home of one of his friends in Bé. The friend advised him to visit
the headquarters of the opposition party Union des Forces de Changement (UFC) in BéKpehenou. They both went there the next day.
2.2
On 28 February 2005, at UFC headquarters, the complainant and his friend were
received by a woman to whom they related the events of the previous night. Three men then
accompanied them back to the scene of the incident. Together, they fished four bodies out
of the lagoon, including that of a child between 10 and 12 years of age. The complainant
found no trace of his father. On the evening of 28 February 2005, the complainant left Bé to
visit a friend in another town. Upon his arrival, the complainant renewed contact with M.A.
and asked him to inform his (the complainant’s) uncle A.D. of the situation and to fetch the
savings that he and his father had been hiding in his room. On 2 March 2005, M.A. visited
the complainant’s home. Neighbours told him that the previous day, 1 March 2005, three
strangers had arrived at the complainant’s home, broken the door down and searched his
room.
2.3
On 3 March 2005, the complainant’s aunts called him and advised him to leave the
country. The complainant decided, however, to await the outcome of the elections, hoping
for an opposition victory. He remained concealed at his friend S.’s house and never left it.
On 26 April 2005, upon learning of Faure Gnassingbé’s election victory, the complainant
decided to leave the country. His friend made contact with an acquaintance who had
emigrated to Switzerland and who was in Togo at the time; the acquaintance had previously
helped someone to escape the country. For a payment of 3 million CFA francs, this
individual agreed to help him to leave the country, offering to lend him his own son’s
passport. The complainant sent his friend home to look for his identity card, but S. found
only an old card that had already expired. It was this document that the complainant
submitted to the Swiss authorities.
2.4
On 28 April 2005, the complainant left Togo for Cotonou, Benin, where he boarded
a plane for Switzerland. On 29 April 2005, he submitted an application for asylum in
Switzerland to the Vallorbe Registration Centre. On 3 May 2005, he was interviewed in the
centre for the first time. Two other interviews were held on 24 May and 22 August 2005.
2.5
From Switzerland, the complainant telephoned his uncle, who told him that he had
visited Lomé prison in the hope of locating the complainant’s father, but without success.
On 30 July 2005, in another telephone call, the uncle told the complainant that the previous
day, law enforcement personnel had returned to his home to ask the other residents
questions about the complainant. They had assaulted the residents, beating them with
weapons; all the residents had left the house. In a letter dated 13 February 2006, the uncle
said that he had resigned himself to looking for the complainant’s father in the town’s
mortuaries. He said that he had visited the Tokoin teaching hospital and the Tsevié and
Kpalimé mortuaries. It was in Aného, on 7 February 2006, that he finally found the body of
the deceased. According to the death certificate signed by the chief of the special delegation
GE.10-46944
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