In the Comoros, former President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi and 11 co-defendants were sentenced on Monday morning by the State Security Court. A special jurisdiction whose decisions cannot be appealed. The sentences range from two years in prison, suspended to life, for the former president, convicted of “high treason”.
The verdict was delivered in the absence of former President Sambi and his lawyers, who only took part in the first hearing last Monday, before no longer appearing before the Court to denounce a court they consider biased and illegitimate. The 12 co-defendants were being prosecuted for the so-called economic citizenship », or the alleged embezzlement of large sums of money from the sale of Comorian passports to foreigners. The prosecutor had advanced the sum of 1.8 billion euros embezzled, more than the GDP of the archipelago.
But according to the lawyers ofAhmed Abdullah Sambi, no trace of this money was discovered and the facts had moreover been requalified as “ corruption ” at ” high treason “. An incrimination that does not exist in Comorian criminal law. According to the defense, it was not surprised by the verdict: ” The logical continuation of an unfair trial aimed at getting rid of all opposition commented this Monday Me Mahamadou Ahamada, reached by telephone.
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Ahmed Abdallah Sambi is 64 years old, his preventive detention since August 2018 was judged ” arbitrary by the United Nations, and his family denounces a sequestration. Another condemned: the former vice-president and presidential candidate of 2016, Mohamed Ali Soilihi, currently in France for medical reasons. He gets 20 years in prison.