Guinea: Former President Alpha Condé in the hands of the justice system

In Conakry, legal proceedings are launched against former President Alpha Condé and 26 former senior officials who served under him. They are accused of, among other things, assassinations, murders, torture and kidnappings.

The pressure is tightening around the former president and 26 members of his entourage. Most of the latter are already being prosecuted in other cases by the court for the repression of economic and financial offences (crief) created by the military junta in power. Indeed, since Wednesday 4 May, in a twenty-page document entitled ” Guidelines for legal proceedings by way of denunciation “, the public prosecutor at the Conakry Court of Appeal has instructed the prosecutor’s office of the court of first instance ” to initiate legal proceedings without delay ” against numerous personalities of the deposed regime.

Thus, the former head of state, Alpha Condé, is the first personality to be prosecuted. This is followed by a former president of the Constitutional Court, the National Assembly, the Prime Minister and a considerable number of former ministers, MPs and security officials. The main grounds for prosecution are quite clear. These include “murder, assassination and complicity”, enforced disappearances, detentions, abductions, torture, assault, rape and sexual assault…

In addition, the complaint was filed in January by the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), a political party which, since October 2019, has fiercely opposed the plan for a third term of Alpha Condé. These protests have resulted in dozens of deaths, mostly civilians. But this did not prevent the former president from seeking a new mandate in October 2020, after having had the constitution revised at the beginning of that year. Since then, the FNDC and international NGOs such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have continued to call for justice.

The prosecutor, Alphonse Charles Wright, who was appointed by the junta, opened an investigation and announced that he already had evidence, images and videos that had been provided by the FNDC.

As a reminder, Alpha Conde was overthrown on 5 September 2021 in a putsch led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya. After the successful coup, he was kept prisoner by the military. In January he was allowed to travel to the Arab Emirates for medical treatment, before returning home on 10 April.