LOME, Togo (AP) — People in Togo voted in parliamentary elections Monday that tested support for a proposed new constitution that would scrap presidential elections and give lawmakers the power to choose the president.
The opposition and religious leaders say the legislation is an effort by President Faure Gnassingbe, in office since 2005, to prolong his rule. Lawmakers passed the legislation in March after their mandate expired, and it is close to being enacted.
The West African nation has been ruled by the same family for 57 years, initially by Eyadema Gnassingbe and then his son. Faure Gnassingbe took office after elections that the opposition described as a sham. The opposition says the proposed new constitution makes it likely that Gnassingbe will stay on when his mandate expires in 2025.
Authorities cracked down on civic and media freedoms ahead of Monday's vote. Early this month, the government banned protests against the proposed new constitution and the arrest of opposition figures. The electoral commission has banned the Catholic Church from deploying election observers.
In mid-April, a French journalist who arrived to cover the elections was arrested, assaulted and expelled. Togo's media regulator later suspended the accreditation process for foreign journalists.
“We are participating in these elections because we have no alternative,” Jean-Pierre Fabre, an opposition party candidate, told The Associated Press. He added that he was worried about the apparent low voter turnout and fairness of the electoral process.
Some 4.2 million Togolese were registered to vote in the country of about 8 million people. Voters were electing candidates for 113 parliamentary seats — 22 more than in the previous assembly — and for the first time filling 179 senatorial positions. Preliminary results were expected within six days.
Togo’s authorities sealed the borders on Monday for security reasons and dispatched some 12,000 gendarmes and police officers to safeguard the voting process.
Amid a rise in the spread of disinformation during elections in West Africa, authorities warned against disseminating false results or other misleading news.
One voter, Kpedji Kossi Nicabou Sena, said he was voting out of concern for the proposed change to the constitution. “This year’s vote is a crucial vote, it’s a vote that can make a difference for my country,” he said.
Yao Alexandre Adabrah, a citizen living abroad who returned to vote, echoed the concerns: “We don’t the know the consequences of the new constitution that’s coming.”
FILE - Togo's President, Faure Gnassingbé, centre, looks on, prior to the start of the ECOWAS meeting, in Abuja, Nigeria, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Togolese voters headed to the polls on Monday, April 29, 2024, to vote in the country's parliamentary elections that will test support for a proposed new constitution that would scrap future presidential elections and give lawmakers the power to choose the president instead. (AP Photo/Gbemiga Olamikan, File)
A voter casts her ballot in Togo's regional elections in the capital Lome, Monday April 29, 2024. Togolese voters headed to the polls on Monday to vote in the country's parliamentary elections, which will test support for a proposed new constitution that would scrap future presidential elections and give lawmakers the power to choose the president instead. (AP Photo/Erick Kaglan}
WASHINGTON (AP) — A prominent conservative activist's son was sentenced on Friday to nearly four years in prison for what prosecutors said was his “relentless” assault on the U.S. Capitol, where he smashed a window, chased a police officer and invaded the Senate floor.
Leo Brent Bozell IV, 44, of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol and among the first to reach the Senate floor during the Jan. 6, 2021, siege.
Bozell's father, L. Brent Bozell III, founded the Media Research Center, the Parents Television Council and other conservative media organizations.
The younger Bozell turned to apologize to two Capitol police officers sitting in the courtroom gallery before U.S. District Judge John Bates sentenced him to three years and nine months behind bars. He also told his parents and wife that he has “put a stain on my family forever.”
“I don't recognize that person in the videos," he said. “I don't know what I was thinking.”
Bates said storming the Capitol wasn't a spontaneous act for Bozell. He had made plans to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and anticipated violence that day, the judge noted.
“You had plenty of chances to stop doing what you were doing,” the judge said.
Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of 11 years and eight months for Bozell. They said he mounted “relentless and sustained attacks” on law enforcement as he joined or led other rioters in breaking through police lines at several locations inside and outside the Capitol.
“There are few rioters on January 6 who were involved in as many pivotal breaches as Bozell,” prosecutors wrote.
The judge allowed Bozell to remain free until he must report to prison at a date to be determined. Bozell thanked the judge after learning his sentence.
Bozell was arrested in February 2021. An FBI tipster who identified Bozell recognized him in part from the “Hershey Christian Academy” sweatshirt that he wore on Jan. 6.
Bates heard testimony without a jury before convicting Bozell of 10 charges, including obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory.
After then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6, Bozell marched to the Capitol and joined a mob in breaking through a police line.
Bozell used a metal object to shatter the windowpane of the Senate Wing Door. After climbing through the smashed window, Bozell joined other rioters in chasing a Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, up a staircase to an area where other officers confronted the group.
Bozell entered then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and left carrying an unidentified object. He later entered the Senate gallery, where he moved a C-SPAN camera to face the ground so it could not record rioters ransacking the chamber on a live video feed. He also spent several minutes on the Senate floor.
Bozell roamed thorough the Capitol for nearly an hour, reaching more than a dozen different parts of the building and passing through at least seven police lines before police escorted him out, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors had argued for a “terrorism enhancement” that would significantly increase the recommended range of a prison sentence for Bozell. But the judge declined to apply the enhancement, saying it “doesn't make a lot of sense in this case.”
Defense attorney Eric Snyder said Bozell doesn't deserve to be described as a terrorist.
“Good people do bad things,” Snyder said. “This is a good person who did a terrible thing.”
Bozell’s father submitted a letter to the court in which he expressed support for his son — and questioned prosecutors’ motives for seeking a terrorism enhancement.
“I have remained silent for the past 3 1/2 years because I didn’t want to tip the apple cart of justice,” he wrote. “But given what I saw in the trial, and more importantly learning about this terrorism enhancement, I no longer can. I believe there is more at play here.”
More than 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 850 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.
FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to then-President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
