The draft amnesty law aims to rule out any prosecution against the military perpetrators of the coup against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
The junta led by Assimi Goïta should benefit from “jurisdictional immunity” at the end of the transition. According to Article 19 of the Transitional Charter adopted in September 2019, “members of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) and all actors who participated in the events from August 18, 2020 to the inauguration of the president of the transition, benefit from jurisdictional immunity” and, therefore, “cannot be prosecuted or arrested for acts committed during the said events.”
While some human rights organisations consider this law as a “bonus to impunity,” the political class believes that such a consensus should not be called into question at the risk of putting the country in an uncertain political climate eight months before the end of the transition.
According to Adema–PASJ, the party of the former president of Mali Alpha Oumar Konaré, “it’s necessary to take all the measures that can lead to appeasement given the country’s current context.”
Such a law is not a first in Mali. In 2012, the parliament had voted an amnesty law in favour of Captain Amadou Aya Sanogo, two months after overthrowing President Amadou Toumani Touré, who died on November 10, 2020.
Mali, which has been at war with jihadist groups for a decade, is due to hold presidential elections in February 2022 to mark a return to constitutional order.
CD/lb/abj/APA