May 4, 2024

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Suspected coup organizer charged in Sierra Leone

Suspected coup organizer charged in Sierra Leone

Freetown, January 3 (Prensa Latina) The Sierra Leone government has charged a former soldier and bodyguard of former President Ernest Bai Koroma for organizing a recent coup in that country, television in the capital reported today.

Amadou Queta, along with 11 other people, is suspected of planning the failed attempt to violate the constitutional order, carried out by armed men on November 26 when they attacked an army barracks.

Information Minister Chernor Bah said in a statement that prosecutors charged Queta and his alleged accomplices with treason, concealing treason, harboring and aiding and abetting the enemy, among other things.

Koroma, who is under house arrest in his residence in this city, was also considered a suspect in preparing the coup, to which he was summoned to testify on several occasions.

At the time, William Faia Selo, Inspector General of Police, indicated that alleged participants in the coup were under investigation, who also included 50 soldiers, seven police officers and 15 civilians.

The armed action occurred a few months after the June 24 elections, when Julius Maada Bio was re-elected with 56.17% of the vote, a result unknown at the time to the opposition on the streets.

However, opposition candidate Samora Kamara rejected the coup, which was also condemned by several international organisations, including the Economic Community of West African States, the European Union and the United Nations.

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