While relations between Ouagadougou and Paris have been strained since the arrival in power of Captain Ibrahim Traore, who is closer to Moscow, reports are circulating of the arrest of a former French corporal “suspected of espionage.”
A former French soldier was arrested on Monday 12 August 2024 in Ouagadougou by the national police, as reported on Wednesday 28 August 2024 by the French daily Le Monde, which has been suspended in Burkina Faso since June 2024.
According to the newspaper, the French army corporal, who has been working in private security and as a security consultant in the mining sector in Burkina since 2020, is suspected of “spying” on behalf of French intelligence.
He has been held incommunicado in Ouagadougou for almost two weeks. On 12 August, Damien L., a security officer working for an Australian mining company in Burkina Faso, was arrested by police in the capital. The official reason: a problem with his visa, with which he had returned to the country the day before to complete another month’s rotation, as this Norman has been accustomed to doing for the past four years.
According to Le Monde, his hotel room was searched, followed by his telephones and personal computer.
Investigators discovered that the former French soldier had been exchanging information on the security situation in the country,” the daily reports, adding that this was enough for the Burkina Faso authorities to “suspect him of espionage and launch an investigation into his environment and his various contacts.”
Relations between Ouagadougou and Paris have not been at their best since Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who is closer to Moscow, took power in September 2023.
In early December 2023, four French agents from the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE) were arrested in Ouagadougou.
Accused of spying, they are still being held in Burkina Faso and negotiations for their release have been unsuccessful.
DS/sf/ac/lb/as/APA