He was the most wanted man in Guinea. After ten months on the run, Colonel Claude Pivi, a figure in the junta that ruled his country between 2008 and 2010, sentenced to life imprisonment during the trial of the massacre of September 28, 2009, was arrested on Tuesday, September 17 in Liberia. The arrest took place in a village on the border with Guinea and the first images of him circulating on social networks, showing him in yellow flip-flops and shorts in the back of a pick-up truck and then on a police couch, weaken the legend of the soldier who, at the time of his omnipotence, appeared in public decked out in fetishes and terrified all of Conakry.
The conditions of his arrest are not yet known but, for Asmaou Diallo, the president of Avipa, the association of victims, parents and friends of September 28, the end of this escape “is a great day, a first victory for all its victims”She now hopes that the former presidential security minister of Moussa Dadis Camara can be “extradited as quickly as possible to Conakry to serve his sentence for which he was convicted in his absence at first instance”.
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On July 31, those primarily responsible for the massacre that left 156 dead and hundreds injured, accompanied by the rape of 109 women, according to the report of a United Nations commission of inquiry, were sentenced to heavy sentences. All attended their trial except Claude Pivi, who was nowhere to be found despite the half-billion Guinean francs – some 50,000 euros – promised for his capture by the Guinean authorities.
“It was an extreme danger that was running in natureunderlines Souleymane Bah, the president of the Guinean Human Rights Organization. Victims at the trial of the September 28, 2009 massacre testified about the abuse they suffered, of the many exactions that he had instigated but also in which he participated. Let there be no mistake, this man was a criminal, a killer, a rapist of women.”
A certain influence within of the army
Claude Pivi escaped on November 4, 2023, during a spectacular escape from Conakry prison. At the head of the commando that came to extract him from his cell was one of his sons, Verny, who is still missing according to a Guinean officer. Two other major figures in the junta that had violently repressed those who had stood up to refuse the military’s desire to retain power were then released: its leader Moussa Dadis Camara and the former gendarme Moussa Tiegboro Camara.
They were all quickly caught and brought back to the dock, but this escape has caused a stir in the country and made the current putschist regime of Mamadi Doumbouya nervous. Claude Pivi indeed retains a certain influence within of the Guinean army, even if Mamadi Doumbouya has worked since his coup d’état to remove from command posts, particularly in the autonomous battalion of airborne troops, those supposedly close to Claude Pivi, the majority of whom come from the forest region of Guinea.
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“It is not by chance that Pivi was arrested in Liberia, which borders the forest region of Guinea, says Vincent Foucher of the CNRS. Pivi was one of the pillars of the 2008 junta. He had enough leverage within the army to organize his escape. He was one of those officers who had important clienteles within the Guinean army. He brought in a large number of “little people” »continues the researcher.
One of these “small”who requested anonymity for security reasons, recalls the period when “Coplan,” one of his nicknames, headed the presidential security ministry under Moussa Dadis Camara, then advised President Alpha Condé.
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“This man had an extraordinary aura. This karate champion, who had fought during the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, was still very respected. If he is extradited to Conakry, I fear he will die in prison.”he said, referring to the former chief of staff, Sadiba Coulibaly, a former close friend of Mamadi Doumbouya, whose death in detention remains unexplained. “He must answer for his actionsadds the Guinean officerbut before the International Criminal Court where his safety will at least be guaranteed.”
The September 28 trial was hailed as a first “historical ” by many Guineans and by the main Western chancelleries which cooperate without difficulty with the junta in power today. But he is also considered, recalls Vincent Foucher, as a “means of legitimizing Mamadi Doumbouya’s repressive policy” And “a way to delay the transition.”
