The trial of the attempted military coup against the power of President Issoufou Mahamadou, on March 31, 2021, started in Niamey on Friday January 20. Fifty-eight defendants are present at the bar.
With our correspondent in Niamey, Moussa Kaka
Senior, junior officers and rank-and-file men are involved in this attempted military coup. President Issoufou Mahamadou had almost been overthrown two days before the inauguration of his successor, Mohamed Bazoum.
The 58 defendants, mostly soldiers, are thus all prosecuted for undermining state security and a failed attack.
Unlike Captain Sani Gourouza and his second in command, Lieutenant Morou Abdourahamane, who confessed to attacking the presidential palace, not all senior officers acknowledged the charges against them. But at the bar, during confrontations, the name of Brigadier General Seydou Bagué, then Chief of Staff of the Army, as well as that of Major Djibo Hamadou, head of the military operations office, are cited for to be the masterminds of the coup attempt.
The testimony of Major Mamassani Kiao, head of the special forces fighting against terrorists on the Malian border, is overwhelming. According to him, his superior asked him to turn his guns against the capital Niamey with his 3,000 men, which he refused.
The judges were then built by Captain Sani Gourouza and his second who went on the offensive with six vehicles against the presidential palace. Forcefully pushed back by the presidential guard, they abandoned the game.
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