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Norbert Zongo (31 July 1949 – 13 December 1998), also known under the pen name Henri Segbo or H.S., was a Burkinabé investigative journalist who managed the newspaper L'Indépendant in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Under Zongo's supervision, L'Indépendant exposed extortion and impunity within the government of Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré. He was assassinated after his newspaper began investigating the murder of a driver who had worked for the brother of Compaoré.
Zongo was a supporter of human rights and also helped found the Movement for Human and Peoples' Rights, an organization in Burkina Faso.
Norbert Zongo's remains are buried in Gounghin Military Cemetery located just West of Ouagadougou.
Zongo was also a writer. His first novel Le Parachutage was a thinly disguised political critique of Togo's President Gnassingbé Eyadema set in the post-colonial era. In the preface of the novel in 1988, Zongo mentions being arrested and beaten for writing it. He followed this novel with the colonial setting for Rougbêinga two years later, which was also political satire of leadership.
In 1991, Zongo, after working for the national daily paper Sidwaya, founded La Clef with Saturnin Ki. It was the first newspaper in Burkina Faso to openly criticism the government, with Zongo contributing under the pseudonym Henri Sebgo (or H.S.). The paper folded in 1993. That June, Zongo founded the weekly L'Indépendant, which primarily covered government corruption. In 1996, he began investigating a series of fraud and graft cases involving several mining and manufacturing companies with ties to top political officials and President Blaise Compaoré's family. His resulting work severely embarrassed the government. The following year, Zongo directly criticized the Parliament's decision to amend the Constitution to allow Compaoré to seek a third term.
On December 13, 1998, four bodies were found shot and burned in a Toyota Land cruiser on the side of the road in Sapouy, Ziro Province. The remains were identified as Norbert Zongo; Zongo's brother Yembi Ernest Zongo; Blaise Ilboudo, a colleague; and Abdouleye Ablassé Nikiema, who was Zongo's driver. Zongo's death triggered a national crisis and violent protests within Burkina Faso.
In January 1999, François Compaoré was charged with murder and harboring the body of the victim in connection with the death of Ouedraogo. The charges were later dropped by a military tribunal after François Compaoré appealed against them.
Six presidential body guards were identified as suspects in the murder. In August 2000, five members of the presidential security were charged for the murder of Ouedraogo. Marcel Kafando, Edmond Koama and Ousseini Yaro, who are also suspects in the Norbert Zongo case, were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Edmond Koama died on January 4, 2001. Marcel Kafando was the only one who was charged for the crime, but the charges were later dropped on July 19, 2006. Marcel Kafando died three years later, in 2009. The judgment was called "scandalous" by Reporters Without Borders.
Businessman , who had also been implicated in documents brought forward by Reporters Without Borders, died in October 2011.
In 2013, the case was appealed for the family to have justice for their loss under a court system that was not under control of Burkina Faso. It was believed by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights that Burkina Faso's government covered up the case and violated the revised treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which allows freedom of expression and journalism. The ACHPR determined that the case should be reopened in order for the victim's families to be compensated for their losses.
Norbert Zongo's widowed wife, Genevieve continued to keep his newspaper, the L'Indépendant, alive after his death. She remains the primary publisher and editor in memory of her late husband.
In 2014, it was determined that Norbert Zongo's case was unfairly excused due to a bias in government.
On the morning of October 29, 2017, François Compaoré was arrested at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, based on a May 2017 international arrest warrant. A French ministerial decree authorized the extradition of Compaoré in March 2020. However, the extradition was suspended in 2021 by the European Court of Human Rights. Subsequently, in the aftermath of the 2022 coup, on December 13, 2023, France made the 2020 ministerial decree obsolete. "Afrique Burkina Faso: la France annule le décret d'extradition de François Compaoré", Radio France Internationale, 21 December 2023 .
Reporters Without Borders' head of its Africa desk, Cléa Kahn-Sriber, said, "This ruling constitutes a major turning-point in the Zongo case, which has suffered appallingly from the impunity tolerated for all these years by Burkina Faso's justice system."
Reporters Without Borders, who avidly campaigned for Zongo's case, stated, "This has always been a highly political case. Zongo was killed by members of the presidential guard. François Compaoré, the brother of President Blaise Compaoré, is implicated. The authorities never stopped protecting the killers. The president has got what he always wanted – injustice."http://www.ifex.org/fr/content/view/full/75827/ Judge dismisses sole suspect in Zongo's Murder
The Independent Commission of Inquiry released the following statement: "Norbert Zongo was assassinated for purely political motives because he practiced investigative journalism. He defended a democratic ideal and had chosen to become involved, with his newspaper, in the struggle for the respect of human rights and justice, and against the poor management of the public sector and impunity."
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