The investigation puts more legal pressure on Alpha Conde, which already faces charges of corruption, murder and torture.
Guinea’s Justice Minister Alphonse Charles Wright announced the opening of an investigation into former president Alpha Conde for treason, two years after he was removed from power in a military coup.
Conde, Guinea’s first democratically elected leader, was removed from office in September 2021 by an elite military unit led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya. The coup came after he tried to extend his 10-year term for a third term and brutally suppressed protests against the electoral bid.
Since then, Guinea’s military leaders have launched a litany of judicial investigations against Conde, including for alleged corruption, murder, torture, kidnapping and rape.
According to Wright’s letter to the prosecutor in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, the latest investigation, ordered on Monday, will focus on “alleged acts of high treason, criminal conspiracy and complicity in the illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.”
The letter accuses Conde of having currently lives in exile in Turkey, purchased weapons and ammunition, without providing details.
Guinea is one of several West and Central African countries that have experienced a coup in recent years. Since 2020, there has been at least one coup in Gabon, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Guinea’s military leaders have vowed to return the country to civilian rule by 2026.
Another former president indicted
Earlier this month, another former Guinean president embroiled in legal turmoil, Moussa Dadis Camara, witnessed drama after he was briefly released from prison after escaping from prison.
According to his lawyer, Camara was recaptured on November 4, hours after an armed commando took him out of Central House prison in Conakry. His lawyer, Pepe Antoine Lamah, said the imprisoned former president did not willingly take part in the escape and was instead kidnapped by armed men.
However, a judicial source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that masked and armed soldiers who arrived at the prison stated that they “came to free Captain Dadis Camara.” It was unclear whether Camara escaped of his own accord.
Camara – a former army officer who came to power in a coup and led the country from December 2008 to January 2010 – has been detained since September 2022 on charges of murder, sexual violence, torture, kidnapping and kidnapping. .
They are related to an attack carried out in 2009 by security forces loyal to the then leader of the military government.
According to an investigation commissioned by the United Nations, the killing of 156 people and the rape of at least 109 women began on September 28, 2009, during a political rally at the Conakry stadium and continued in the following days. Camara and ten other co-defendants face life in prison if convicted.
