The first session of the Lomé Assize Court in July will see more than a hundred cases judged as crimes. These are cases related to maritime piracy, international high-risk drug trafficking, homicide offences, rape, pedophilia, incest and embezzlement of public funds.

The first session of the Lomé Assize Court which will deal with 120 criminal cases. Scheduled to last six weeks, the session was opened on July 5, 2021, at the Lomé Court of Appeal. Among the subjects on the program, the case of the attack on the night of May 11 to 12, 2019 of the Tanker G-DONA 1 in waters under Togolese jurisdiction. For the first time in the history of justice, a case relating to maritime piracy will be judged in West Africa and it is in Togo that the merit of this trial goes. What is at stake in this trial comes from the fact that most of the countries that have signed the Montegobey Convention on the Law of the Sea have not transposed this arsenal into their legal order and pirates knowing this generally behave in the waters of these countries as lawless. The President of the Lomé Court of Appeal, Dindang Kemente, reassured that all the conditions have been met to ensure a fair and equitable trial for the accused. In addition, the former executive director of maritime safety and security in the Gulf of Guinea, Christian Trimua, took the opportunity to present the challenges posed by the trial on maritime piracy, the first of its kind in West Africa. .