France on Friday cleared the extradition of Francois Compaore, the brother of Burkina Faso’s former president, to his home country where he is wanted in connection with the murder of a prominent journalist.

The Council of State, France’s highest court for cases involving public administrations, rejected an appeal by Compaore’s lawyers against a previous ruling for his extradition, saying there were no constitutional or other grounds to overturn the decision.

Compaore is the younger brother of Blaise Compaore, who was ousted in a popular uprising in 2014 — after 27 years in power that started with a coup d’etat — and went into exile in Ivory Coast.

The murdered journalist was Norbert Zongo, director of the weekly magazine L’Independant and an investigative reporter. His charred body was found on December 13, 1998, along with three killed colleagues in a burnt-out car on a road south of the capital Ouagadougou.

The killings sparked mass protests in Burkina Faso and drew international condemnation.

Initially only one suspect, presidential guard member Marcel Kafando, was charged for the killing and later acquitted.

Zongo had been investigating the death of David Ouedraogo, Francois Compaore’s driver.

Burkina Faso closed the probe after freeing the guard member, but the judiciary reopened the case after Blaise Compaore had been deposed.

An independent investigation ordered by the subsequent government concluded that the assassination was linked to the professional activities of the journalist who had a track record of uncovering irregularities in the Compaore regime.

Six suspects, all members of the presidential guard, were identified by the independent investigators and three were charged.

‘Dignity, honour and responsibility’

The Burkina Faso judiciary suspects that Francois Compaore may have ordered the hit, although he has not so far been charged with any crime.

French police arrested him at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in October 2017 following an international arrest warrant issued by his country’s government. In 2020, Burkina Faso made a deal with France for his extradition.

Compaore’s lawyers said on Friday that their client was ready to face his country’s judiciary “with dignity, honour and responsibility”.

But they added in a statement sent to AFP that he felt the extradition was politically motivated, and that the Council had failed to take into account the risk of torture, inhumane treatment and of an unfair trial awaiting him.

“He would certainly be exposed to such risks if he were handed over to Burkina Faso,” they said.

Compaore has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in the hope of stopping the extradition, they said.

Source: AFP

Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s former president and Africa’s onetime richest woman, must return to Angola her shares in Portugal’s Galp energy firm worth 422 million euros ($500 million), an international arbitration court has ruled.

Dos Santos is accused of diverting billions of dollars from state companies during her father Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s nearly 40-year rule of the oil-rich southern African nation.

The embattled ex-first daughter, whose business assets have been frozen since 2019, was ordered by a Dutch court this week to return shares worth $500 million to Angola’s national Sonangol energy group, which she chaired until Lourenco took power.

The transaction under which Dos Santos acquired her stake in the oil and gas company Galp is “null and void”, according to a copy of the ruling seen by AFP on Friday by the Netherlands Arbitration Institute (NAI), which is part of the International Court of Arbitration.

After paying a 15 percent deposit from the bank account of another company in the British Virgin Islands, dos Santos allegedly paid the rest of the amount in Angola’s local currency, worth little outside the country, rather than in euros as agreed on the sales contract, according to the NAI.

Santos’s six-percent stake in Galp is part of a myriad of investments in Angola and former colonial ruler Portugal, worth about $3 billion according to Forbes magazine, that have been under scrutiny.

The court’s decision — dated July 23 and first reported by Dutch media late Thursday — said that the 2006 purchase of the shares, acquired through a company owned by dos Santos’ late husband Exem Energy, was illegal.

Dos Santos had consistently denied any wrongdoing and denounced all accusations as a politically motivated witch hunt.

Exem’s lawyers intend to appeal the decision “with the competent court”.

“In this arbitral award the political narrative clearly overrides the legal analysis,” the company said in a statement emailed to AFP on Friday.

One of Sonangol’s lawyers, Yas Banifatemi, told Dutch media there was “nothing political” in the court’s decision.

“The arbitration court has judged that Isabel dos Santos enriched herself with money stolen from Angolan people,” said Banifatemi, cited in Dutch daily newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad.

‘The princess’

President Joao Lourenco has vowed to crack down on corruption since dos Santos retired in 2017, removing his predecessor’s cronies from key positions and probing the former regime for alleged graft.

He has targeted several members of the dos Santos family, including Isabel and her younger brother Jose Filomeno dos Santos, sentenced to five years in prison for diverting oil revenues last year.

Isabel is the eldest daughter of Angola’s ex-president, accused of ruling the country with an iron fist, leaving a legacy of poverty and nepotism.

The British-educated billionaire businesswoman has faced several allegations of plundering the public purse and funnelling the money abroad.

In a trove of 715,000 files released in January 2020 by the award-winning New York-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and dubbed the “Luanda Leaks,” dos Santos was accused of syphoning state funds from the oil-rich, but impoverished country into offshore assets.

Nicknamed “the princess” in Angola, she was accused of amassing her vast fortune thanks to the backing of her authoritarian father.

In Portugal, in addition to Galp, she has major bank stakes and has a controlling share of a Portuguese cable TV and telecom firm.

In December 2019, Angola’s prosecutors froze the bank accounts and assets owned by her and her Congolese husband Sindika Dokolo, who died last year, a move she described as a groundless political vendetta.

Dos Santos became Africa’s richest woman after Forbes magazine named her the continent’s first female billionaire in 2013. She lost that title when her assets were frozen.

Source: AFP

The International Criminal Court has dropped its arrest warrant for Ivory Coast’s former first lady Simone Gbagbo over post-election violence that killed thousands in 2010-2011, according to a decision made public Thursday.

Simone Gbagbo faced charges of crimes against humanity—including murder, rape, inhuman acts and persecution—following her husband’s refusal to hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, who won a 2010 election.

Over 3,000 people died in the unrest.

“The chamber considers it appropriate to decide that the warrant of arrest for Simone Gbagbo shall cease to have effect,” the court said in a seven-page ruling seen by AFP and dated July 19.

“Good news for Madame Simone Gbagbo… she can now travel freely throughout the world,” her lawyer Ange Rodrigue Dadje said in a statement sent to AFP.

In March, the ICC acquitted Laurent Gbagbo of crimes against humanity and he returned to Ivory Coast on June 17, after 10 years behind bars in The Hague, where the ICC is based, and then in Belgium.

Simone Gbagbo was not handed over to the ICC, but an Ivorian court sentenced her to 20 years in prison in 2015 for undermining state security.

She was freed on August 8, 2018 following a presidential amnesty.

President Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo met on Tuesday for the first time in more than 10 years, after which Ouattara said that the turmoil was “behind us”.

However reconciliation was not on the cards for the Gbagbo couple—Laurent Gbagbo sought a divorce upon his return to Ivory Coast citing the 72-year-old Simone’s “consistent refusal over the years to agree to an amicable separation”.

They married in 1989 and have two daughters.

The 76-year-old Gbagbo currently lives with Nady Bamba, a 47-year-old former journalist.

Source: AFP

The vice-president of Equatorial Guinea Teodorin Obiang was definitively condemned on Wednesday for having fraudulently constituted a luxurious patrimony in a section of the “ill-gotten gains” affair, after the rejection of his appeal by the Court of Cassation.

Obiang had been sentenced by the Paris Court of Appeal in February 2020 to three years in prison with a suspended sentence, 30 million euros in fines and the confiscation of all his assets seized for “laundering of misuse of social assets, embezzlement of public funds and breach of trust” between 1997 and 2011.

The United Kingdom has also imposed sanctions a few days ago against Teodorin Nguema Obiang, son of the country’s veteran president, for allegedly syphoning state assets into his own bank accounts.

The British government decided to freeze Obiang’s assets and bar him entry to the United Kingdom. According to authorities, the president’s son would have concluded corrupt contracting arrangements and solicited bribes to support his jet-setting lifestyle.

They claim he has splurged $500 million on mansions around the world, luxury cars and a collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia including a $275,000 crystal-covered glove that the singer wore on his 1987-89 “Bad” tour.

Source: Africa News

Equatorial Guinea announced on Monday it was closing its embassy in London after the United Kingdom imposed sanctions against Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the vice president and son of the country’s veteran president, over for allegedly syphoning state assets into his own bank accounts.

Foreign Minister Simeon Oyono Esono told national TV that he did not “accept interference” in the central African state’s “domestic affairs,” and said the sanctions were “breaching the principle of international law”.

“The first decision that the government has taken is the total closure of our diplomatic mission in London,” Foreign Minister Simeon Oyono Esono told state broadcaster TVGE.

He gave no details as to when the decision would take effect.

Equatorial Guinea on Saturday lashed the sanctions as “unilateral and illegal”.

“The baseless sanctions imposed by the British government find their justification in manipulation, in lies… that certain non-governmental organisations are fomenting against the good image of Equatorial Guinea,” it said.

The younger Obiang “has not made any investment in the United Kingdom”, the government added.

This reaction from Equatorial Guinea comes days after British government decided to freeze Obiang’s assets and bar him entry to the United Kingdom.

According to British autorities, the president’s son would have concluded corrupt contracting arrangements and solicited bribes to support his jet-setting lifestyle.

They claim he has splurged $500 million on mansions around the world, luxury cars and a collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia including a $275,000 crystal-covered glove that the singer wore on his 1987-89 “Bad” tour.

Allegations that resonate with charges brought against him in France, where he is accused of money laudering.

The junior Obiang is already entangled in a dispute with France over a 107-million-euro mansion on Paris’s swanky Avenue Foch that was seized along with a fleet of luxury cars in a probe into so-called “ill-gotten gains.”

In February 2020, a French court handed him a three-year suspended sentence, a 30-million-euro fine and confiscation of his assets in France.

A final ruling by the Court of Cassation, the paramount tribunal in France’s judicial system, is expected on Wednesday.

“A step in the right direction”

The only Spanish-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa, Equatorial Guinea is one of the most enclosed nations on the continent, and many of its people live in deep poverty despite oil wealth.

Its ruler Obiang, 79, is the world’s longest-serving sitting president and is frequently accused by rights groups of abuses.

In 1979, he ousted his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema, who had ruled the country since independence from Spain in 1968, and had him shot by firing squad.

His son Teodorin, 53, is vice president with responsibility for defence and security and has long been considered as his likely successor.

Tutu Alicante, head of EG Justice, a group that campaigns for human rights in Equatorian Guinea, said the sanctions were, “a step in the right direction, which shows that corruption is not victimless crime.”

Most of the country’s 1.4 million citizens have no access to running water or decent education, said Alicante, who lives in exile.

The economy has been badly hit since a slump in oil prices in 2014 crimped government revenue.

In its 2020 budget, Equatorial Guinea allocated 95 billion CFA francs, the equivalent of $170 million to defence spendings, compared to 59 billion francs to education.

Source: Africa News

At least 57 migrants drowned after their boat sank off Libya, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Monday, the latest tragedy on the dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing to Europe.

“Horrified by yet another painful loss of life off the Libyan coast,” Federico Soda, the IOM’s Libya mission chief, said on Twitter. “At least 57 people drowned today in the latest tragedy… Silence and inaction are inexcusable.”

The ship sank off the Libyan port of Khoms, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of the capital Tripoli, the IOM added.

Libya is a key gateway for Europe-bound migrants.

It was not immediately clear what caused the boat to sink, but vessels leaving the North African coast for Europe are often heavily overloaded makeshift crafts, departing at night even in rough weather to avoid detection by the coastguard.

“Survivors who spoke to our staff said 20 women and two children were among those who lost their lives,” the IOM said, adding the latest tragedy “highlights the immediate need” for “state-led SaR (search and rescue) capacity” on the dangerous route.

The Libyan coast guard picked up more than 13,000 people in the first half of this year, exceeding the total figure for 2020, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Earlier this month, the IOM said that the number of people who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean nearly doubled in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period last year.

The European Union has for several years supported Libyan forces to try to stem migration, despite often grim conditions in detention centres in Libya.

International agencies have repeatedly denounced the return to Libya of migrants intercepted at sea.

Oil-rich Libya was torn by conflict after toppling and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

But last October, rival groups signed a truce, setting in motion a UN-led process that saw a new transitional government installed.

Source: AFP

Street clashes erupted on Monday outside Tunisia’s army-barricaded parliament, a day after President Kais Saied ousted the prime minister and suspended the legislature, plunging the young democracy into a constitutional crisis.

Saied sacked Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and ordered parliament closed for 30 days, a move the biggest political party Ennahdha decried as a “coup”, following a day of angry street protests against the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic.

Soldiers from early Monday blockaded the assembly in Tunis while, outside, the president’s supporters hurled volleys and stones at backers of Ennahdha, whose leader staged a sit-in to protest being barred entry.

Saied’s dramatic move – a decade on from Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, often held up as the Arab Spring’s sole success story – comes even though the constitution enshrines a parliamentary democracy and largely limits presidential powers to security and diplomacy.

It “is a coup d’etat against the revolution and against the constitution,” Ennahdha, which was the biggest party in Tunisia’s ruling coalition, charged in a Facebook post, warning that its members “will defend the revolution”.

The crisis follows prolonged deadlock between the president, the premier and Ennahdha chief Rached Ghannouchi, which has crippled the Covid response as deaths have surged to one of the world’s highest per capita rates.

“I have taken the necessary decisions to save Tunisia, the state and the Tunisian people,” Saied declared in a statement on Sunday, a day that had seen angry Covid street protests in multiple cities.

The president’s announcement sparked jubilant rallies by his supporters. Large crowds took to the streets of the capital late Sunday to celebrate and wave the national flag, as car horns sounded through the night and fireworks lit up the sky.

“Finally some good decisions!” said one Tunis protester, Maher, celebrating in defiance of a coronavirus curfew. Others held up signs with a simple message to the sacked government: “Game Over”.

‘Most delicate moments’

Before the president’s announcement, thousands had marched in several cities protesting against Ennahdha, criticising the largest party in Tunisia’s fractious government for failures in tackling the pandemic.

A senior Ennahdha official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, alleged that the protests before the president’s announcement, and the subsequent celebrations, had all been choreographed by Saied.

“We are also capable of organising large demonstrations to show the number of Tunisians who are opposed to these decisions,” this official said.

Since Saied was elected president in 2019, he has been locked in a showdown with Mechichi and Ghannouchi, who is also house speaker. The rivalry has blocked ministerial appointments and diverted resources from tackling Tunisia’s many economic and social problems.

“We are navigating the most delicate moments in the history of Tunisia,” Saied said Sunday.

He said the constitution did not allow for the dissolution of parliament, but did allow him to suspend it, citing Article 80 which permits it in case of “imminent danger”.

In a later Facebook post, he clarified that the suspension would be for 30 days.

Saied said he would take over executive power “with the help” of a government, whose new chief will be appointed by the president himself.

He also said that parliamentary immunity would be lifted for deputies.

‘Birth of a dictator’

In the 10 years since the revolution which toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has had nine governments, some of which have lasted only a few months, hindering the reforms necessary to revamp its struggling economy and poor public services.

Tunisia has recently been overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases which have raised the death toll to more than 18,000.

Last week, Mechichi fired his health minister over his handling of the pandemic as cases skyrocketed – the latest in a string of health ministers to be sacked.

In Sunday’s Covid protests, hundreds rallied in front of parliament, shouting slogans against Ennahdha and premier Mechichi.

Demonstrations were also reported in the towns of Gafsa, Kairouan, Monastir, Sousse and Tozeur.

Several protesters were arrested and a journalist was injured when people hurled stones and police fired tear gas canisters, an AFP reporter said.

“The people want the dissolution of parliament,” the crowd had chanted.

After Saied’s announcement, many Tunisians expressed relief.

Nahla, brandishing a Tunisian flag, was jubilant and told AFP: “These are courageous decisions – Saied is unblocking Tunisia. This is the president we love!”

But one man, aged in his forties, watched on without enthusiasm and said: “These fools are celebrating the birth of a new dictator.”

(AFP)

Prosecutors in Madagascar said Thursday they had foiled an attempt to assassinate President Andry Rajoelina and made several arrests.

“Several foreign and Madagascar nationals were arrested on Tuesday, July 20, as part of an investigation into an attack on state security,” prosecutor Berthine Razafiarivony said in a statement released overnight.

There was “a plan to eliminate and neutralise various Madagascan figures, including the head of state,” Razafiarivony said.

“At this stage of the investigation, which is ongoing, the prosecutor-general’s office assures we will shed light in on this case,” she added.

Two French nationals are among those who were arrested on Tuesday, diplomatic sources told AFP.

The two suspects are reputedly retired military officers, according to the Taratra, a local news agency operation to the Communications ministry.

During the country’s Independence Day celebrations on June 26, the gendarmerie announced that they had foiled an assassination attempt on their boss, General Richard Ravalomanana, who is also Rajoelina’s right-hand man.

Rajoelina, 47, first seized power in March 2009 from Marc Ravalomanana with the backing of the military.

He won the last vote in December 2018 beating his main rival and predecessor Ravalomanana in an election beset by allegations of fraud.

The former French colony has had a long history of coups and unrest since gaining independence from France in 1960.

The island is internationally famed for its unique wildlife and vanilla but is heavily dependent on foreign aid. Nine out of 10 people live on less than $2 a day.

The country has been under a lockdown since the Covid-19 pandemic hit last year and its southern region is in the grips of a famine.

Source: AFP

Mali’s interim president Colonel Assimi Goita was “safe and sound”, his office said, after an assassination attempt by two men, one wielding a knife, during prayers at a mosque in Bamako on Tuesday.

An AFP journalist who witnessed the attack said the assailants lunged at Goita, who was quickly whisked away by security.

The journalist also said he saw blood at the scene, though it was not clear who had been wounded.

An official in the president’s office later said Goita was “safe and sound”, after what was labelled an assassination attempt.

Goita arrived at the military camp of Kati, outside the capital, “where security has been reinforced”, the official added.

Security had subdued one attacker, and “investigations are ongoing”, the presidency added in a statement.

The incident occurred after prayers for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha in the great mosque of Bamako.

Assailants went for the president as an imam was directing worshippers outside the mosque for a ritual animal sacrifice.

Religious Affairs Minister Mamadou Kone, who was at the mosque, told AFP that a man had “tried to kill the president with a knife” but was apprehended.

The mosque’s director, Latus Toure, said an attacker had lunged at the president but wounded someone else.

Later, a security official who requested anonymity said that two people had been arrested and were now in detention.

Political turmoil

The shocking attack follows months of political turmoil in Mali, which is also battling a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Goita was sworn into power in June, after leading the country’s second coup in less than a year.

The colonel had already led a putsch last August, when he and other army officers ousted elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after weeks of mass protests over corruption and the long-running jihadist conflict.

The second coup in nine months sparked diplomatic uproar, prompting the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to suspend Mali, calling for the appointment of a civilian prime minister.

Jihadist insurgency

France, which has thousands of troops stationed in the war-torn country, also suspended military cooperation with Mali.

The former colonial power followed by announcing that it would wind down its 5,100-strong Barkhane force that has battled jihadists in the Sahel since 2013.

The military junta handed power to a civilian-led transitional government, which promised to restore civilian rule in February 2022.

In June it unveiled its new government, appointing military figures in key roles.

Goita vowed at the time that the government would “uphold all its commitments”, pledging to stage “credible, fair and transparent elections”.

A large majority of the 15-nation UN’s Security Council later called for free and fair elections to go ahead in the country without the participation of its current leaders.

Mali also faces unrest outside the political arena.

It has been struggling to contain an jihadist insurgency that first emerged in the north of the country in 2012, and has since spread to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

The conflict has also been mirrored by political instability in the capital.

Source: AFP

Jacob Zuma’s long-running corruption trial will resume on August 10, a South African judge ruled on Tuesday after the ex-president sought to have the case postponed because of the pandemic and recent unrest.

“The trial is adjourned to 10 to 13 August,” Judge Piet Koen said.

Zuma on Monday appeared in court via a video link from his prison, where he is serving a jail term for contempt of court on an unrelated matter.

His lawyers had applied to have the case postponed by up to three weeks because of the unrest and the Covid pandemic to allow time for the trial to resume physically.

The 79-year-old faces 16 charges of fraud, graft and racketeering related to the 1999 purchase of fighter jets, patrol boats and equipment from five European arms firms when he was deputy president.

He is accused of taking bribes from one of the firms, French defence giant Thales, which has been charged with corruption and money laundering.

Both Zuma and Thales have entered pleas of not guilty.

His foundation immediately lauded the decision, tweeting: “The Constitution has prevailed at last!”

“There can be NO virtual criminal proceedings in the absence of an accused person who is unable to consult with his lawyers,” it said.

Zuma, once dubbed the “Teflon president”, began serving a 15-month jail sentence for contempt on July 8.

He was arrested for disobeying a Constitutional Court order to testify before a panel probing the plunder of state coffers during his nine-year presidency

Source: AFP