[ad_1]
Sierra Leone charged 12 people in reference to a failed coup try, in line with a Wednesday assertion from Minister of Data and Civic Schooling Chernor Bah. Among the many accused is Amadu Koita, a former soldier and bodyguard to ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma.
The costs embody a spread of offenses, together with treason, misprision of treason, harbouring and aiding and abetting the enemy. Koita and his 11 co-defendants are the primary to face authorized penalties. Nevertheless, the assertion added that “different accused individuals are anticipated to be charged within the coming days.”
The tried coup on November 26, 2023, noticed a number of gunmen launch assaults on numerous crucial places in Freetown, together with the army armory at Wilberforce Barracks and a jail. The assailants managed to free roughly 2,200 inmates and kill greater than 20 folks within the course of. Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio subsequently declared a nationwide curfew. He additionally later introduced the arrest of a lot of the assault’s leaders and declared that calm had been restored to the nation.
The failed coup adopted months of social unrest from the controversial June 2023 presidential election. President Bio, representing the ruling Sierra Leone Individuals’s Occasion (SLPP), secured victory with a 56.17 % majority vote. Nevertheless, the election end result confronted scrutiny and rejection from his predominant rival, Samura Kamara of the All Individuals’s Congress (APC), who garnered 41.16 %. Kamara contested the end result, citing an absence of transparency, and referred to as for an intensive investigation into the electoral course of.
This incident occurred towards the backdrop of a troubling surge in army coups throughout the area, with six African nations experiencing such takeovers up to now three years. Included amongst these nations are Gabon and Niger, whose respective coups each occurred in 2023.
[ad_2]
Source link
