Of the seven people arrested last week by state security, five are being prosecuted. The transitional authorities did not talk about this topic, but RFI was able to cross-check a certain amount of unpublished information.
Two people were released, five others transferred to the gendarmerie. Sékou Traoré, chief of staff for the presidency with ministerial rank, as well as Souhahebou Coulibaly, director of the state agency Agefau, were actually able to return home for free. Sékou Traoré even resumed his work in the Presidential Palace.
More the five other people arrested was transferred Friday night to Camp 1 of the Bamako Gendarmerie after being detained for several days without any legal proceedings. Their case was therefore taken to court.
They are two senior public finance officials, Mr Koné and Keita, PMU director Vital Robert Diop, radio columnist and protest activist Mohamed Youssouf Bathilyalia’s Ras Bath, and Aguibou Tall’s deputy prime minister, also half-brother of former Prime Minister Boubou Cissé.
It is the cabinet of Maître Kassoum Tapo, defending the interests of the former Prime Minister and Aguibou Tall, that one of his collaborators was able to visit. “He is being prosecuted for undermining the state’s internal security,” explains the lawyer, who specifies that his client was questioned about his connections with other arrested people or with the UNTM, the National Union of Workers of Mali. According to the lawyer, the other detainees would be prosecuted for the same reasons.
The transitional authorities never communicated about this series of arrests, so they never explained the reasons, but the questions asked to Maître Tapo’s client confirm certain information that had already been filtered out: “They talked to him about attempts at destabilization and coup. But there is nothing but questions, confirms Maître Tapo, they have no material evidence “. It is now up to the prosecutor to decide whether or not to forward the case files to an investigating judge.
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