In a heavy-handed crackdown that has sparked an outcry over press freedoms and human rights, Gabonese journalist Harold Leckat, publishing director of Gabon Media Time, has been languishing in police custody since Wednesday at the Directorate General of Research (DGR) in Camp Roux.

Arrested as he got off the plane at Léon Mba International Airport, while returning from a training course in Montpellier financed by the European Union, he is now at the heart of an accusation that he defrauded the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC), despite providing supporting documents in the reporting, the originals of which are kept within the institution.

According to judicial sources familiar with the case, the case relates to a commercial contract concluded in September 2020 with the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC). This collaboration was terminated at the end of 2024 by the institution's new authorities.

But strangely, after the new CEO maintained the same agreement for more than six months, beyond the economic allegations with legal overtones being debated between counsel and the prosecution, it is the detention regime that is shocking.

This is the revelation made this Friday, October 17, 2025 by the person concerned when he was brought before the public prosecutor's office.

Harold Leckat reportedly didn't mince his words. " I'm forced to sleep on a chair, handcuffed all night, " he told the prosecutor, citing a seizure on Thursday, October 16, that left him isolated from the communal cells. Where is the human dignity?

Faced with this denunciation of detention conditions, prosecutor Bruno Obiang Mve did not comment.

Police custody extended by an additional 72 hours was decided this Friday by the public prosecutor, Maître Bruno Obiang Mve, despite conditions that amount to torture.

The latter opted for the extension, adjourning the case until Monday morning. Criminal law experts, speaking on condition of anonymity, see this as a sign of a " hollow" case . In other words, such an adjournment would reflect an impossibility of establishing a solid guilt case with the current evidence, forcing the prosecution to play for time while waiting for evidence.

" It's a classic tactic to mask the evidentiary vacuum ," confides a lawyer, emphasizing that Harold Leckat, a business leader, married man and exemplary family man, offers every guarantee of representation and does not justify such a prison regime.

As these lines are being written, he is likely enduring another night of torture, shackled to a chair that serves as a makeshift bed. This treatment, which borders on institutional abuse, urgently calls for action from the judicial authorities, from the Attorney General to the Minister of Justice, who are the guarantors of fundamental rights.

The extension of this custody, far from being a routine measure, risks tarnishing the image of post-transition Gabon, where a free press is supposed to be a pillar of the nascent democracy. International bodies, such as the EU, which funded its training, are already scrutinizing the case: it is time for the Gabonese justice system to act, or risk seeing this case explode into a diplomatic scandal.