Jailed Congo Opposition Leader Flies To Turkey For Treatment

Brazzaville, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Jul, 2020 ) :The government of the Republic of Congo on Thursday let a jailed opposition leader fly to Turkey for health care after weeks of campaigning by rights groups, sources said.

Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko, a 73-year-old general who contested hardline President Denis Sassou Nguesso in elections in 2016, "took off from Brazzaville at 11:28 am (1020 GMT) aboard an ambulance aircraft heading for Ankara," his attorney Yvon Eric Ibouanga said.

Mokoko last year was jailed for 20 years on charges of undermining state security and illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.

He was admitted to a military hospital in the capital on July 2 for "overall fatigue and loss of appetite," Ibouanga said.

Several rights organisations, as well as lawyers and political dissidents, had been stepping up appeals for him to get treatment abroad.

They scheduled a protest march on July 16 that was banned by the authorities on the grounds that it could help coronavirus to spread.

"To send General Mokoko to Turkey for treatment is to export Brazzaville Prison to Ankara... Turkey is not a benchmark of human rights," Paulin Makaya, head of a party called United for Congo, said at a press conference.

Tresor Nzila, of the Congolese Monitor of Human Rights (OCDH), said, "The most important thing is that he returns to good health. As for the rest, we'll see about that later." Mokoko, a former chief of staff, placed third in the March 2016 elections, picking up less than 14 percent in the first round of the vote, while Sassou Nguesso was controversially declared outright winner.

The Republic of Congo, also called Congo-Brazzaville, is an oil-rich but also poverty-stricken neighbour of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sassou Nguesso, 76, has cumulatively spent 35 years in power since he first became president in 1979.

He is running for re-election in the next presidential ballot, due next March.