The ruling junta in Guinea ordered Thursday, November 3 to initiate legal proceedings against ex-President Alpha Condé whom it overthrew by a coup in 2021, and more than 180 senior executives or ex-ministers in particular for alleged corruption.

The soldiers who took power by force more than a year ago have made the fight against corruption deemed endemic in Guinea one of their major proclaimed battles and many former officials are already detained in this context.

But in his public letter sent Thursday to the attorneys general, the Minister of Justice takes a new step because he specifically targets the former head of state (2010 to 2021), and a large number of his executives when he was in power.

Among them, former Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana and around forty former ministers, such as Mohamed Diané in Defense, Mamady Camara in the Economy or Mariama Camara in Trade.

A number of advisers to the presidency under the Condé regime are also cited.

In total, the Minister of Justice Alphonse Charles Wright gives a list of 188 names, some of which are already in prison and others cited several times.

Their accounts are frozen, the document says.

The proceedings are initiated "for alleged acts of corruption, illicit enrichment, money laundering, forgery and use of forgery in public writing, embezzlement of public funds and complicity".

"Moralization"

"The Guinean government, in its policy of moralizing public life, has set itself the objective of combating economic and financial offences," said the Minister of Justice.

"It is imperative to open legal inquiries to elucidate the origin of the funds of these various accounts without this prejudicing the unfreezing when it is established in a contradictory manner that these accounts are exempt from all presumptions of illicit enrichment" , he continues.

This is not the first time that proceedings have been brought against ex-president Alpha Condé, 84, implicated in May for alleged acts including assassinations, acts of torture, kidnappings and rapes, in this country. where the repression of political demonstrations is often brutal.

Guinean justice had acted following the action initiated in January 2022 by the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), a collective which led for months from October 2019 the challenge against a third term of office. 'Alpha Conde.

The collective has since been dissolved by the junta because its members denounced the "unilateral" management of the so-called transition period, the confiscation of power, and had called for demonstrations, which were banned by the authorities.

Several of their executives have since been languishing in prison.

Since September 2021, Colonel Doumbouya has been sworn in as president and has recently pledged to hand over power to elected civilians within two years from January 2023. He assured on taking power that he would not there would be no "witch hunt" but that justice would be the "compass" of the country.

With AFP

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