Dakar, May 2 (APS) – Guinea-Bissau President Umar Sissoco Embaló has rejected the extradition request for François Bozizé issued by the Special Criminal Court (CPS) in Bangui against the former Central African head of state, report several international media.
The SPC issued an international arrest warrant against him on Tuesday for “human rights violations committed between 2009 and 2013”.
According to Gervais Bodagy Laoulé, the court’s spokesperson, the warrant concerns ”crimes committed under the direction of Bozizé in a civilian prison and in a military training center in the town of Bossembélém, where many people were tortured and killed (…) by the presidential guard and other security forces.
On Wednesday, Guinea-Bissau President Embaló declared that his country’s Constitution does not have an extradition law and that ”since he arrived in Guinea-Bissau, François Bozizé has not created any problems”.
”He is in exile, as we have been in the past,” he told the Portuguese press agency Lusa, in comments reported by the Radio France Internationale (Rfi) website.
François Bozizé led the Central African Republic from 2003 to 2013, after a coup d’état against Ange-Félix Patassé, before being overthrown in turn by the Séléka rebellion. After Chad, he has lived in exile since March 2023 in Bissau.
ABB/ASG/OID