A judicial investigation is opened in Paris into “torture” which allegedly targeted several members of the Bongo family, incarcerated in Gabon since the August 2023 coup, and which their lawyers said on Thursday they had observed on site.
Me François Zimeray told AFP that a Parisian investigating judge from the Crimes Against Humanity unit was “designated (…) to investigate the facts suffered by Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo, but also by Bilal and Jalil” , respectively the wife and three sons of ex-president Ali Bongo.
He asserted that “no one is above the law, and neither the Bongos nor anyone else. But everyone has the right (…) not to be treated like an animal.”
Me Zimeray is targeting “seven or eight people who carried out these tortures”.
A French judicial source confirmed to AFP that the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, competent in matters of crimes of this type, took requisitions on December 17 for the opening of a judicial investigation against X for torture and acts of barbarism , kidnapping and sequestration by an organized gang.
Me François Zimeray recalled his past as French Ambassador for Human Rights to attest to his recognition of “marks of electric shocks on (Noureddin’s) torso, on his back” or “on his arms”.
Sylvia Bongo, for her part, described to her lawyers “degrading treatments such as jets of cold water and especially the psychological torture of seeing her own son tortured before her eyes”, according to Me Zimeray, approved by her sister Me Catalina de la Sota.
Nearly a year and a half after the incarceration of their clients, the two French lawyers were able to visit them in prison at the end of December, where “their conditions (of detention, editor’s note) are in themselves constituting torture”, they said. they estimated Thursday.
“We saw people traumatized, terrorized, mistreated, taken from the second basement, in fact from the dungeons into which they were thrown, who do not have access to the fundamental rights” of the detainees in addition to torture “in a clear manner “, listed Me Zimeray.
Shortly after this visit, the public prosecutor Bruno Obiang Mve, however, declared that the Bongos’ lawyers had noted “that their clients were never tortured in Libreville prison”.
The Bongo family – the father, Omar, pillar of “Françafrique” from 1967 to 2009, then the son, Ali – ruled Gabon, a small oil-rich central African state, for 55 years under the yoke of an elite accused by its opponents of “massive corruption” and “bad governance”.
-– “De facto leaders” –
Since the coup d’état of August 30, 2023, Ali Bongo has lived in his private residence in Libreville, “free to leave the country” according to the government.
Prevented from leaving this house, according to Me Zimeray, the former head of state, “in perfect possession of his intellectual means”, is according to the lawyer “deeply affected by the fate reserved for his wife and his son “.
The former First Lady, 61, and her 32-year-old son are detained in Libreville central prison. They were “indicted for extremely serious acts”, according to the authorities, Noureddin Bongo in particular for “corruption” and “embezzlement of public funds”, and Sylvia Bongo for “money laundering, receiving stolen goods, forgery and use of forged documents”. “.
The soldiers who overthrew Mr. Bongo by accusing his entourage of having rigged his re-election, suspected the former First Lady and Noureddin of having “manipulated” the ex-president suffering from the after-effects of a serious stroke ( stroke) in 2018.
Questioned in February by AFP, French diplomatic sources indicated that they were “not aware of the alleged facts” of torture or “degrading treatment” regarding Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo, adding that consular visits had been made to them. . .
A “soothing, soft” French reaction, was surprised by Pierre-Olivier Sur, who has just joined their defense.
The coup d’état in Gabon took place a month after that in Niger, which saw the French army expelled from this country, as it had already been from Mali, Burkina Faso, and replaced by Russia, which had also succeeded for France in the Central African Republic.
Gabon after the putsch, unlike these four countries, maintained cordial diplomatic relations with Paris.
AFP
