Judges finish investigation into stadium massacre

pulse

November 10, 2017 5:26 AM

Guinean judges have completed an investigation into a massacre in which at least 157 opposition supporters were killed and 109 women raped by troops in a stadium in 2009, the justice ministry said in a statement Thursday.

In September 2009, a massive opposition protest in a stadium in Conakry against then junta chief Moussa Dadis Camara's rule ended in bloodshed when his security forces opened fire on the crowd.

In a joint statement, human rights organisations and victims of the massacre said the three investigating judges had notified them Monday of "the end of the judicial investigation".

The Ministry of Justice said that the investigating judges had forwarded the file "to the public prosecutor at the Court of First Instance of Dixinn for final settlement", according to a statement.

In their statement, the NGOs and a group representing victims requested the 14 defendants be put on trial.

Camara, a former army officer, seized power in 2008 after the death of Guinea's longtime dictator Lansana Conte. Despite initial support he rankled the population when he broke a pledge not to run for president.

After surviving an assassination attempt in 2009, Camara fled the country and now lives in exile in Burkina Faso, where he was indicted in July 2015 by Guinean magistrates for his alleged involvement in the massacre.

His former aide-de-camp, Aboubakar Sidiki Diakite, known as Toumba Diakite, extradited from Senegal to Guinea in March 2017, is also one of the defendants.

President Alpha Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010, taking over a nation run by a succession of strongmen following independence from France.

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