The Bissau-Guinean authorities issued an international arrest warrant on Friday, December 18, against former Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, a failed presidential candidate on December 29, 2019 and president of the African Guinea’s Independence Party and Cape Verde (PAIGC).
as reported from Bissau,Allen Yero Emballo
The press release does not provide information on the nature of the accusations. Domingo’s Simoes Pereira had left the country a few days before the inauguration of President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and has since lived in exile in Portugal.
In response to this decision from the prosecution, he said that he did not know that there was such an arrest warrant against him and added that he only knew it via social networks.
The decision comes when the former prime minister himself has expressed his intention to return to the field to continue his political activities. The press release from the prosecutor’s office, which RFI had access to, states: “The prosecutor informs that they have issued an international arrest warrant against citizen Domingos Simoes Pereira in connection with a criminal trial”, without giving details about the nature of the crime. .
IMF money embezzled?
According to a source close to the prosecutor, prosecutor Fernando Gomes, who had made several trips to Portugal, had unsuccessfully tried to hear the defendants about funds placed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an account of the state of Bissau-Guinea. 2014, when Domingos Simoes Pereira was Prime Minister. The money in question had been embezzled.
Is this a twist in this affair or simply, as Domingo’s Simoes Pereira claims, a way to distance himself from the political game going on in his country?
.
