Ike Ngouoni is free. The former presidential spokesperson from 2017 to 2019 was released from central prison on Wednesday April 3. He was sentenced in 2022 to eight years in prison for embezzlement of public funds as part of an anti-corruption operation called Scorpion. Other senior officials imprisoned in the operation have been released since the military coup in August 2023.
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“ We don’t realize. Right now it’s too surreal “, we confide in those around Ike Ngouoni after his release. The former presidential spokesperson has just spent nearly five years in detention, since his arrest in September 2019. He was accused of having managed more than seven billion CFA francs as part of his duties, but of not having been able to justify the use of this money intended to finance presidential communications. His lawyers denounced an unfair conviction that was far from reality.
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We do not yet know the reasons for his release, but many are thinking of a presidential pardon, even if in Gabon, it is traditional not to grant it while a case is ongoing. However, for Ike Ngouoni, a judgment from the Court of Cassation was still expected in a few weeks.
Several senior officials arrested as part of Operation Scorpion have in any case already benefited from a pardon from the president Brice Oligui Nguema. According to a good source, the head of state recently requested a list of those still detained, as Christian Patrichi Tanasaformer director of the national hydrocarbons company.
Some see these releases as political acts. “ The president shows the Gabonese that he is different from the Bongos. He frees people imprisoned by the old system and whose misfortunes have led to a certain sympathy for them », Analyzes an observer.
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