The investigation has put more legal pressure on Alpha Conde, already facing allegations of corruption, murder and torture.
Guinea’s Justice Minister Alphonse Charles Wright has announced an investigation into former President Alpha Conde for treason, two years after he was ousted from power in a military coup.
Conde, Guinea’s first democratically elected leader, was removed from office in September 2021 by an elite army unit led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya. The coup came after he sought to extend his ten-year tenure to a third term in office and violently suppressed protests against his election bid.
Guinea’s military leaders have since launched a litany of judicial investigations into Conde, including alleged corruption, murder, torture, kidnapping and rape.
The latest investigation, ordered on Monday, will examine “alleged acts of treason, criminal conspiracy and complicity in the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition”, according to a letter from Wright to of the public prosecutor in the capital of Conakry in Guinea.
The letter attributed to Conde, who now living in exile in Turkey, seized weapons and ammunition, without giving details.
Guinea is one of the few states in West and Central Africa that has undergone a coup in recent years. Gabon, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have all seen at least one coup each since 2020.
Guinea’s military leaders have pledged to return the country to civilian rule by 2026.
Another former president was indicted
Earlier this month, a drama was aired for another Guinean ex-president in legal trouble, Moussa Dadis Camara, because he was briefly released from prison in a jailbreak.
Camara was recaptured on November 4, hours after being busted out of Conakry’s Central House prison by an armed commando, according to his lawyer. His lawyer, Pepe Antoine Lamah, said that the jailed former president did not voluntarily participate in the breakout and was instead kidnapped by armed men.
However, a judicial source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the masked and armed soldiers who arrived at the prison declared that they “came to free Captain Dadis Camara”. It is not clear whether Camara escaped of his own free will.
Camara – a former army officer who came to power in a coup, leading the country from December 2008 to January 2010 – has been in prison since September 2022 on charges of murder, sexual violence, torture, abduction and kidnapping. .
They stem from a 2009 attack carried out by security forces loyal to the former military government leader.
The killing of 156 people and the rape of at least 109 women began at a political rally in a stadium in Conakry on September 28, 2009, and continued in the following days, according to an investigation ordered at the UN. Camara and ten other co-accused face up to life in prison if convicted.
