They will have spent three days in detention in the Central African Republic: the four soldiers of the French army operating for Minusca, and accused on social networks of having wanted to "assassinate" the head of state, Faustin Archange Touadéra, were " released", announced, Thursday, February 24, the UN.
"The four staff members of Minusca (the UN mission in the Central African Republic, editor's note) arrested (...) at Bangui airport have just been released", announced on Twitter the head of Minusca, Mankeur Ndiaye.
The information was confirmed by the French Embassy in Bangui, on Twitter, without further details.
The four soldiers of the Foreign Legion corps of the French army, of French, Romanian, Italian and Bulgarian nationalities, had been apprehended by the security forces, in fatigues, heavily armed and wearing their Minusca badges, on board of an armored vehicle on Monday in front of Bangui airport.
The French embassy and the UN immediately indicated that they were members of the close security of the chief of staff of the Minusca peacekeeping force, General Stéphane Marchenoir, that they had just deposit before taking a plane to Paris.
But immediately, photographs of their well-arranged arsenal on the ground as well as their identity papers had, like a video of their arrest, been widely distributed on private accounts on social networks, with some accusing them of having wanted " assassinate" President Faustin Archange Touadéra who had just landed in Bangui.
The UN and France, which regularly accuses the power in Bangui of being "accomplice of an anti-French disinformation campaign" led by Moscow, had denounced "rough manipulation" but the Bangui prosecutor's office opened the next day. , a "regular investigation to shed light on the facts".
With AFP
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