In the Comoros, the trial of former President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi resumes on Tuesday, November 21, after a chaotic start the day before. The ex-president is on trial for “ high treason before the State Security Court. He is suspected of having embezzled millions of dollars as part of a program to sell Comorian passports to stateless people in the Gulf countries.
Already, the defense contests the legitimacy of the Court and former President Sambi himself considers it incompetent to judge him. The 64-year-old man appeared at the opening of the hearing on Monday, visibly in poor shape. Locked up in his residence for four years without having been triedPresident Sambi found it difficult to speak before the substantive debates.
He denounced the composition of the tribunal, accusing the president of ” bias “. The latter has already sat in the indictment chamber and therefore cannot ” according to law, participate in a trial court “says one of the defendant’s lawyers.
The defense asked the president of the State Security Court to step down. The request was rejected and to protest against this refusal, the former head of state has already made it known that he will not attend the hearing on Tuesday.
What worries its defenders is also the final nature of the court’s verdicts, which are final. ” Judging Sambi at the Security Court deprives him of all avenues of appeal “, explains Master Mahamoudou Ahamada. For him, the condemnation of the former president is beyond doubt. It remains to know the nature of the sentence, because the facts of high treason are not defined by Comorian law.
On Monday, one of the ten co-accused, businessman Bachar Kiwan, said he had been contacted by the Comorian government to give a ” false testimony against ex-president Sambi. The Comorian government has so far not reacted.