Mali: Forsat commander indicted for murders, imprisoned, but quickly released

Aerial view of the capital of Mali, Bamako.

Photothek via Getty Images - Thomas Imo

Text by: David Baché

3 min

Oumar Samaké, commander of Forsat, the elite Malian anti-terrorism force, was placed under a committal warrant this Friday, September 3.

This arrest is linked to the repression of the demonstrations of July 2020, organized by the M5-RFP coalition against President IBK.

It was just before the military coup of the CNSP junta, led by the current Malian head of state Assimi Goïta.

The repression of these demonstrations had caused a dozen deaths, and the use of the Forsat had given rise to many misunderstandings.

But the incarceration of the head of the latter lasted only a few hours: it was the police who released him.

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The divisional commissioner Oumar Samaké, commander of the special anti-terrorism force Forsat and the intervention group of the national police, the GIPN, was imprisoned this Friday morning at the central detention center in Bamako. This aroused the anger of some police officers, who went in large numbers to the prison, from which the commissioner was extracted less than an hour ago. The situation was still obviously quite tense and hazy.

Commissioner Samaké was indicted in the morning for " 

murders, fatal blows, aggravated assault and battery and complicity

 " at the request of the first cabinet of the investigating judge of the tribunal de grande instance of Commune 3 of Bamako. Information communicated to RFI by the prosecutor of this court, who recalls that at this stage the presumption of innocence remains in place.

This indictment is linked to the repression of the demonstrations from July 10 to 13, 2020. The regime of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta is then strongly contested, demonstrations are organized by a coalition, M5-RFP, made up of political parties, unions, civil society organizations or artists.

It was the month preceding the military coup of August 18, which precisely came to "complete" this protest movement, in the terms used by the junta which took power.

A deadly repressed protest movement

A report from the human rights division of Minusma - the United Nations mission in the country - published last December after several months of investigation, reports fourteen deaths in Bamako during the protest movement. The repression also left three dead in Kayes, one dead in Sikasso and more than 150 injured, according to Minusma.

At the time, the use of this counterterrorism force in front of the demonstrators had caused excitement and questions.

In its report, the Minusma precisely wondered about the use of the Forsat, while recalling that the police and the gendarmerie had also made victims.

The indictment of the commander of this force, the first in this case, comes a year after the opening of the proceedings and the judicial inquiry.

But the rest of the procedure may not be simple, since as a reminder, Commissioner Samaké has just been released, following the strong protest of the police officers who had gathered in front of the central detention center in Bamako.

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