The son of the late Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, a refugee in Côte d’Ivoire since the August 2020 military coup which brought down his father, proclaims his innocence in a statement released on Wednesday. The US Treasury announced on December 9 sanctions against Karim Keïta for corruption and human rights cases.
” I want to reaffirm my innocence “, declares Karim Keïta in a press release dated Wednesday, December 14. He denounces ” procedures with obvious political purposes “, a ” lynching ” organized by ” instrumentalized media “and the non-respect of the presumption of innocence from which he should benefit” until proven otherwise. »
The man who had become a deputy and even president of the Defense Commission of the National Assembly of Mali, when his father IBK was President of the Republic, is now a refugee in Ivory Coast. He claims to have so far imposed silence on himself. so as not to disturb anything “the country that has him” offered hospitality “, but also so as not to harm “ the smooth running of the transition in Mali. »
Suspicions of corruption and embezzlement of public funds
The Malian transitional authorities had already issued a international arrest warrant against himin July 2021. It was the sanctions decided last week by the United States that finally prompted Karim Keïta to speak out publicly.
Karim Keïta is accused by the US Treasury of having embezzled public funds and received bribes to promote the awarding of contracts to certain companies. The Treasury has decided to sanction him – freezing of assets, ban on traveling to the United States – first for suspicions of corruption linked to the business of the purchase of the presidential plane and overpriced military equipment contracts dating of 2014.
The establishment of a system of bribes to favor the re-election of his father in 2018 is also cited by the American authorities, who also evoke his possible implication in the disappearance or, according to certain testimonies, in the assassination of the journalist Birama Touré, in 2016.
► Also to listen: In Mali, new revelations in the Karim Keïta case