In a recent controversial directive, Guinea’s ruling junta have on Thursday given a fresh directive for all the prosecutors to take up a series of legal actions against the former president of the Country, Alpha Conde, whom it had overthrown in a 2021 coup, and more than 180 other officials and ex-ministers, notably for alleged corruption.
The military, which had also seized power on September 5, 2021, had also made the fight against corruption which is reputed to be endemic in the West African nation one of its key battles in their military administration.
Read Also: At Least Three Killed In Guinea Pro-Democracy Protests
But the announcement which had been made in a letter from the justice minister to public prosecutors, marks a new stage in the fight, targeting Conde by name — as well as many of his senior officials and former ministers and they also include ex-prime minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana and the former ministers of defence, economy and trade as well as a number of presidential advisers from the Conde regime.
The controversial letter had also ordered prosecutors to pursue the people who had been listed for alleged acts of “corruption, illicit enrichment, money laundering, forgery and use of forgeries in public writing, embezzlement of public funds and complicity”.
The list includes 188 names in total, though some are mentioned more than once. Their bank accounts have been frozen, the letter said.
“The Guinean government, in its policy of raising the moral standards of public life, has set itself the objective of fighting against economic and financial infractions,” Justice Minister Alphonse Charles Wright said in the letter.
“It is imperative to open judicial investigations to clarify the origin of the funds in these various accounts.”
This is not the first time that proceedings have been brought against the 84-year-old former president.
He had also been indicted in May for alleged acts including murder, torture, kidnapping and rape, in a country where the repression of political demonstrations is often brutal and several former officials have been detained as part of the junta’s anti-corruption campaign, including some cited in the letter.
