Where is Boubou Cissé, the last Prime Minister of the ousted ex-president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta? While the Malian justice indicted Thursday, December 31, six civilian personalities for an alleged coup attempt, according to their lawyers, his name was officially cited in the statement of the public prosecutor of Bamako. Four and a half months after the last putsch to date in the country at war, difficult to disentangle the threads of this new affair which shakes up to the highest summit of the State.
What we know
It all started on Monday, December 21 with a series of arrests led by the General Directorate of State Services (DGSE, Malian intelligence). A week later, while the arrests were continuing, the Bamako prosecutor finally provided answers in this particular case with regard to the personality of the suspects and a context where one can be surprised at such a possibility then that the military, very strong in this transition, are at the heart of power and therefore of Intelligence. “Following a denunciation of the security services reporting facts of attack on the security of the State, a preliminary investigation was opened at the level of the Judicial Investigation Service (SIJ) of the national gendarmerie”, had indicated the Bamako prosecutor, Mamoudou Kassogué.
Thursday, December 31, the Bamako prosecutor’s office confirmed in a statement the opening of a judicial investigation against six personalities, including the last Prime Minister before the August coup, Boubou Cissé, for “conspiracy against the government, criminal association , offense against the head of state and complicity ”. The judge ordered their placement under committal. Boubou Cissé had formally denied on December 23 any involvement in a destabilization project. “I want to take national and international opinion as witnesses to this odious attempt to discredit myself and the political ideal that I am supposed to embody: I am neither directly nor indirectly, in any way whatsoever, associated with a project to destabilize the institutions of my country, and I challenge anyone to provide evidence to the contrary, ”he wrote on his Facebook page. On December 24, unidentified armed men searched his home in Bamako in his absence, according to his lawyers. Since the former Prime Minister, who has not been imprisoned, has “remained untraceable” according to the prosecution. Last I heard, he is believed to be still in Bamako.
The prosecution refers to alleged facts of “attack on the internal security of the State”, “serious and consistent indications” of the existence of a “criminal enterprise” and “acts of sabotage” against initiatives taken by the transitional authorities set up by the military after their putsch. The prosecution refrains from talking about a coup, but it is “for (alleged) acts of attempted coup” that the accused were indicted, said in a statement the collective of lawyers who defend them.
Who are the personalities mentioned?
Apart from Boubou Cissé, justice has imprisoned Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, known as “Ras Bath”, activist, polemicist and radio host with many sympathizers; Vital Robert Diop, Managing Director of Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), organization of betting on horse races and games of chance; Aguibou Tall, head of an agency working on access to telecommunications, half-brother of Boubou Cissé; and two senior executives from the Public Treasury (State Finances), Mamadou Koné and Souleymane Kansaye.
Another character in the crosshairs: Sékou Traoré, Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic. Arrested too, he had been released, but is not out of the woods. Given his status as a magistrate and a rank equivalent to that of minister, the elements concerning him were transmitted to the Attorney General at the Supreme Court, said the prosecution.
What justice blames them
No specific details were disclosed on the alleged charges. The prosecution invokes in vague terms “suspicious contacts” between some of the accused, also suspect trips in the country or the possibility of links with “organizations and influential figures in the media world (…) for the needs of the proposed criminal enterprise ”.
This case comes at a time of deep uncertainty in a country plunged for years into a security and political crisis, and facing jihadist spread, among other major challenges. After the fourth coup since independence in August, the military set up transitional bodies which they closely control but which are supposed to give way to elected civilians after 18 months. The initially favorable reception given to the putschists after months of exasperation and protest gradually gave way to disenchantment in the face of the militarization felt by the transition and the slowness of the results.
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