Former Guinean leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara was taken out of prison on Saturday morning by a heavily armed commando after heavy exchanges of fire in the centre of Conakry, lawyers and a judicial source said.
Sources also confirmed that at least, two other former officials currently on trial like Captain Camara for a massacre perpetrated in 2009 under his presidency, were also taken from the prison.
And it is not yet clear whether the abduction was organised by his loyalists to enable him escape from prison with his senior officials or by another group with a different agenda.
But Guineans work up in the capita, Conakry, before dawn to the sound of automatic weapons as a group of masked and heavily armed soldiers arrived around 4 a.m. (local time and GMT) in front of the prison to which they forced access, declaring that “they had come to free Captain Dadis Camara.”
A source noted that once inside, the heavily armed commandos, who appeared to know the location where Captain Camara was being held, headed towards the Captain’s cell and took him and other detainees to an unknown destination.
“The public prosecutor confirmed to me that my client had been taken out of prison by heavily armed men,” his lawyer, Jocamey Haba, told AFP, raising the possibility that his client had been taken against his will.
“I still think he was kidnapped. He has confidence in the justice of his country, which is why he will never try to escape,” he added, referring to the ongoing trial. “His life is in danger,” he lamented.
The operation shook the country and its presidency, institutions, businesses, initially raising the fear of a putsch.
On September 5, 2021, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya had stormed the Presidential Palace with his men and overthrew civilian President Alpha Condé by force of arms.
Officials who were “abducted” alongside Camara include Moussa Tiegboro Camara and Claude Pivi, who are being tried with him, including a dozen former military and government officials, for the 2009 massacre.
This is the second year of the trial for which Captain Camara had been detained since the start of the hearings in September 2022.
They are being tried for a litany of murders, acts of torture and other kidnappings committed on September 28, 2009 by security forces at the 28-Septembre stadium in the suburbs of Conakry where tens of thousands of opposition to military rule sympathizers had gathered to protest. According to report of United Nations (UN) mandated Commission of Inquiry, at least 156 people were killed and hundreds injured, including at least 109 women.
The trial opened in September 2022 when the country’s new strongman, Colonel Doumbouya, promised after his coup to rebuild the Guinean State and make justice his “comp.”
After the 2021 putsch, Colonel Doumbouya was inaugurated President and under international pressure committed to handing over power to elected civilians within two years from January 2023. Already, the Forces vives de Guinée, a collective of opposition parties and organizations have denounced the unfulfilled commitments and an authoritarian drift evoking an “emerging dictatorship.”