2023-11-04 13:19:55
Update
04 November 2023
14:19
Automatic weapons fire rang out this Saturday morning in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. Former dictator Dadis Camara was taken out of prison by force.
Heavy fire from automatic weapons was heard in the center of the Guinean capital Conakry, where access is blocked on Saturday morning by security forces, witnesses said. According to judicial sources cited by AFP, ex-dictator Dadis Camara was taken out of prison by an armed commando. This armed intervention shook the capital of this West African country this Saturday morning led since September 2021 by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who overthrew civilian President Alpha Condé by force of arms.
At least two other former officials currently on trial like Captain Camara for a massacre perpetrated in 2009 under his presidency were also taken from the prisonaccording to these sources, without it clearly appearing whether Moussa Dadis Camara had escaped of his own free will.
One of the two former managers was recaptured. The army affirmed its loyalty to the junta in place since September 2021 and called on the population to calm down. The general staff assured in a message broadcast repeatedly on state television that the situation was “quickly brought under control and returned to normal”.
“The attorney general confirmed to me that my client had been taken out of prison by heavily armed men,” his lawyer, Jocamey Haba, told AFP, raising the possibility that his client had been taken against his will. “I still think he was kidnapped. He has confidence in the justice system of his country, which is why he will never try to escape,” he added, referring to the ongoing trial. “His life is in danger,” he added. -he rocks.
“There is fire from automatic weapons and war in the political-administrative district of Kaloum“, testified on Saturday morning, a resident of the area on condition of anonymity for his safety. “The city center has been blocked since dawn, no entry or exit,” declared a trader, also under cover of anonymity.
“Armored vehicles have been deployed.”
“We wanted to go to the port where I work, but we were prevented (from passing) at the entrance to the Kaloum peninsula, where armored vehicles were deployed,” he added. Several witnesses reported that the streets were deserted and that armored vehicles had been deployed.
Kaloum, located on a peninsula, is the seat of the presidency, government, institutions, army headquarters but also the central prison. Some testimonies located the shootings near the prison but also the 8-Novembre bridge, a crucial road junction for entering and leaving the center.
“Incipient dictatorship”
An airport official, far from the center, indicated that the planes had not taken off on Saturday morning, the navigation staff having been unable to reach the airport platform from Kaloum, where they commonly spend the night. The September 5, 2021 coup is one of several putsches and attempted coups that have rocked West Africa since colonels seized power in Mali in August 2020.
The shooting in the center of Conakry occurred while Guinea, a country with a tormented political history since independence from Francewas holding the trial of former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara, who had been detained in the center of the capital since the start of the hearings in September 2022. The shots heard this Saturday were clearly linked to the intervention of a commando who took out the former prison dictator, according to AFP.
Captain Camara and a dozen former military and government officials were responsible for a litany of murdersacts of torture, rapes and other kidnappings committed on September 28, 2009 by security forces at the 28-Septembre stadium in the suburbs of Conakry, where tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered, and in the surrounding areas .
At least 156 people were killed and hundreds injured, and at least 109 women raped, according to the report of a commission of inquiry mandated by the UN.
After the 2021 putsch, Colonel Doumbouya was inaugurated president and under international pressure committed to handing over power to civilians elected within two years from January 2023.
The Forces vives de Guinée, a collective of opposition parties and organizations, denounced unfulfilled commitments and an authoritarian drift, evoking an “emerging dictatorship”.
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