The former chief of staff of the Guinean army and former number two in the ruling junta was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for “desertion abroad” and “illegal possession of weapons” by a military court, noted an AFP journalist.
General Sadiba Koulibaly was number two in the junta led by General Mamadi Doumbouya when the military took power during the September 2021 coup.
He was immediately named chief of staff of the army, a position he held until May 2023.
Charge d’affaires at the Guinean embassy in Cuba since then, Sadiba Koulibaly left Havana in May to return to Guinea, in order, according to him, to demand payment of the salaries of embassy staff.
He was arrested on June 4 in Guinea with six other soldiers, his bodyguards, on the grounds that this trip had not been authorized by his superiors and that he had thus abandoned his post.
Weapons were also seized from the officer’s home, according to Colonel Aly Camara, military prosecutor.
The prosecution had requested ten years in prison.
The defense denounced a “framework” against the senior officer and announced that they had appealed. “It’s a scandalous decision,” Mr. Lancinè Diabaté, Sadiba Koulibaly’s lawyer, told AFP. “It’s remote control, the accusations don’t hold up,” he said.
The six bodyguards of the accused were released.
Nearly three years after the coup that overthrew President Alpha Condé in September 2021, the prospect of a return to constitutional order in Guinea continues to recede.
The junta has already made it known that it will fail to fulfill a commitment, initially made under international pressure, to give way to civilian rule by the end of 2024.
The Prime Minister, Amadou Oury Bah, refused on Wednesday to formally commit to a return of civilians to power in 2025.
He cited among the prerequisites the holding of a constitutional referendum which, according to him, General Mamadi Doumbouya is committed to organizing by the end of the year. No draft Constitution has been made public to date.
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