APA-Conakry (Guinea) The trial of activists and leaders of the Front National pour la Defense de
la Constitution (FNDC), an entity dissolved by Guinea’s military junta finnaly began on Thursday.
On Wednesday June 7, the public prosecutor’s office of the Dixinn court of first instance announced the opening of the trial of Oumar Sylla dit Fonike Mengue, Ibrahima Diallo and Saykou Yaya Barry, executive secretary of the UFR (Union des Forces Republicaines) led by Sidya Toure, on Thursday June 8, 2023.
They are charged with “criminal participation in an assembly, complicity in the destruction of public and private buildings and complicity in intentional assault and battery.”
On the morning of Wednesday June 7, Ibrahima Sory 2 Tounkara, the president of the Dixinn Court of First Instance, explained that for security reasons, the trial of these accused would be transferred to the Conakry Court of Appeal, where the case relating to the events of September 28, 2009, during which more than a hundred people were killed and several dozen women raped, was being heard.
Ousmane Sylla, alias Fonike, and Ibrahima Diallo spent almost nine months in detention at a Conakry prison.
They were provisionally released on May 17 after a series of demonstrations supported by religious mediation.
According to Salifou Beavogui, one of their lawyers, the charges against them have been dropped.
“We hope that they will be given a fair trial so that they can finally regain their freedom, as this case is empty,” he told APA.
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