Guinea Opens Probe Into Crime Under Deposed Leader

Legal authorities in Guinea on Friday launched investigations into alleged crimes under the rule of president Alpha Conde, who was overthrown in a military coup last September

Cona, Italy, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Jan, 2022 ) :Legal authorities in Guinea on Friday launched investigations into alleged crimes under the rule of president Alpha Conde, who was overthrown in a military coup last September.

Appeal court general prosecutor Alphonse Charles Wright ordered the probe into "relevant facts committed during the period 2010 to 2020 by persons yet to be identified", in a statement seen by AFP.

Conde was president from 2010-2021 before being ousted in a military coup last September led Colonel Mamady Doumbouya.

The investigations should consist of "calling witnesses or hearings of direct or indirect victims, judicial requisitions of public establishments in order to communicate all the ballistic autopsy reports or any other information without any type of professional secrecy", prosecutor Wright said.

The announcement came after the former president, who is still under house arrest in Conakry, was allowed at the end of the year to travel abroad for a month to seek medical care.

The release of the 83-year-old Conde is one of the demands made by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, along with the holding of elections within six months.

ECOWAS has suspended Guinea and sanctioned individual members of the junta which has named Mamady Doumbouya transitional president of the mineral-rich but impoverished country.

Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected leader in 2010, but last year sparked mass protests when he changed the constitution to allow himself to seek a third term.

Though Conde was re-elected, his critics denounced the poll as a sham amid dozens of arrests.

The former president had been held incommunicado for 12 weeks until the junta allowed him to stay with his wife in the suburbs of Conakry.