From invitation to trap? The movie of journalist Comlan Hugues Sossoukpè’s arrest in Abidjan

La suite après la publicité

On July 8, 2025, Comlan Hugues Sossoukpè arrives in Abidjan, confident. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), he had been officially invited by the Ivory Coast Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitalization to cover a regional fair on digital innovation, as a “recognized journalist of the sub-region.”

A political refugee in Togo since 2021, Comlan Hugues Sossoukpè thought he was benefiting from strong diplomatic guarantees. He is staying at the Palm Beach Hotel, a property owned by the Côte d’Ivoire Military Provident Fund, and begins to cover the event the day after his arrival.

But what the journalist doesn’t know is that this invitation hides a very different maneuver. According to RSF, everything accelerates on the evening of July 10 when Ivorian police knock on his room door. He tries to resist but ends up following the officers, convinced by their promise that he will be brought before a judge.

Headed to the airport, without a hearing or recourse?

RSF reveals that the journalist was never presented to any Ivorian judicial authority. He is taken directly to the VIP lounge at Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport, an area usually reserved for special guests. There, a private Beechcraft 1900D type plane awaits him. Only Ivorian police and crew members accompany him on board. The plane takes off for Cotonou in complete administrative silence.

However, his status as a political refugee is unmistakable. RSF, having inspected his passport, confirms that this designation is in “black and white”. This document should have guaranteed his protection against any form of expulsion. But this guarantee was not respected by the Ivorian authorities, laments RSF.

At 10 pm, the plane lands in Cotonou. Comlan Hugues Sossoukpè is immediately handed over to the economic and financial brigade. The next morning, he is brought before an investigating judge of the Court for the Repression of Economic Crimes and Terrorism (CRIET).

The charges

Three charges are held against him: “harassment via an information system”, “rebellion” and “apology for terrorism”. He is incarcerated without delay at the Ouidah civil prison without any official communication from the Beninese and Ivorian authorities.

His lawyer, Me Serge Pognon, contacted by RSF, asserts that the journalist is physically well, but feels “trapped” and “betrayed” by Côte d’Ivoire. RSF reminds that Comlan Hugues Sossoukpè has lived in exile for seven years, after having criticized the Beninese legislative elections of 2019. His media outlet Olofofo, prohibited in Benin in March 2025, had regularly denounced political abuses.

Complicit silence, a coordinated operation?

RSF expresses strong indignation at what it considers a “shameful delivery” of an exiled journalist. “The Ivorian authorities have clearly become complicit in the well-established persecution of a reporter by deploying significant means to deliver him to Benin,” says Arnaud Froger, head of the investigation bureau of RSF. The NGO demands official explanations from Abidjan, which remains silent for now.

On the Beninese side, RSF reports that the government spokesperson, Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, merely asserted that the journalist “will have to answer the accusations brought against him,” without comment on the conditions of his arrest.

Presented to Criet this Monday, July 14, 2025, he has been placed in custody and is awaiting his trial. RSF demands his immediate release and “reserves the right to take any appropriate action against this disregard for security cooperation.”

For the journalist defense organization, what happened in Abidjan is nothing but an illegal operation of political refoulement, made possible by a mock procedure, a private flight, and the manipulation of diplomacy. A dark chapter for press freedom in West Africa.