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Former Mali Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maïga, as well as a former finance and economics minister, was indicted and arrested by the Supreme Court, particularly over the purchase of the command plane of former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. In this story, as in others, new arrests may be planned.
as reported from Bamako,Serge Daniel
Soumeylou Boubeye Maïga was the Malian Minister of Defense at the time of the facts; Bouaré Fily Sissoko, Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance.
The two were charged with fraud, counterfeiting, use of counterfeiting and favoritism, mainly with the purchase of a presidential plan that is from 2013-2014.
The first spent his first night in the Bamako detention center, the civilian prison, the second in the Bollé women’s prison, still in the Malian capital.
►Read again: Sanctions are falling in Mali, as far as the presidential plane is concerned
If the lawyers for the two personalities say that they have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, it is a case that has been in the headlines for a long time.
Exactly how much did IBK’s command plan cost? The figures differ between the actual cost, brokerage commissions and other fees, but they are all impressive.
Mali’s auditor, ‘Mr Anti-Corruption’, had already hit the table to demand responsibility. International institutions as well.
►Read also: Malian justice wants a trial in the case of the IBK plane
The resumption of this case is part of the new authorities’ triggering fight against corruption.
According to our information, new arrests are planned in the case of the presidential aircraft. But also in other cases.
If a good part of the political class approves of this operation “clean hands”, it asks that there should be no two-speed justice or witch-hunt.
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Cheik Mohammed Cherif Koné is the chairman of the Malian Association of Prosecutors and Prosecutors (AMPP). He is also the Advocate General of the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office. This does not prevent him, on the contrary, from condemning what he describes as an instrumentalisation of justice.
Sheik Mohammed Cherif Koné: “Members of the Supreme Court are not even aware of what is happening here”
Doubtful middlemen, over-invoicing, validation of unbearable expenditures for the national budget: the files on the purchase of presidential plans and military equipment contracts, closed in 2018 and finally opened last year, scandalized Mali and hit the headlines for several years. Without ever convicting those responsible.
Today, there is a great thirst for justice, and the promises made by the country’s transitional authorities in the fight against corruption and impunity are undoubtedly the ones that everyone wanted to hear.
“It is an illegal procedure, of judicial brigandage,” say the judges, outside the microphone, a judge who follows the dossiers closely. In fact, the profession questions the way in which the Supreme Court seized cases that would fall under the Supreme Court, only according to the texts competent to judge ministers.
This method feeds the arguments of those involved: after his indictment, the lawyers for the former prime minister decided not to comment, but a few hours earlier they condemned a witch hunt led by the transitional authorities and by a judiciary that they appreciate the orders.
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