Voahangy Rajaonarimampianina, the wife of the previous Malagasy president, was given a one-year suspended prison sentence on Tuesday February 14, together with a fine of one million ariary. The former First Lady was found guilty of complicity in false testimony in a case between journalist and former Minister of Communication Rolly Mercia, influential businessman Mamy Ravatomanga and the public prosecutor. A condemnation that arouses astonishment and annoyance on both sides.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Sarah Tetaud
According to the lawyer for Rolly Mercia, the main defendant in the case, the former first lady Voahangy Rajaonarimampianina would not have received her summons to appear until the day before the trial, when the procedure provides for a minimum of two months. Residing in France, she therefore did not appear at the hearing and was not represented by a lawyer.
For the HVM, the political party created by her husband Hery Rajaonarimampianina, freshly returned to the country with probable electoral ambitions for the presidential election to be held in November, this court case is akin to a ” political repression “. Alain Rasambany, secretary general of the party, explains:
” When will the current regime stop using the judiciary to take political revenge on people who don’t have the same opinion as them? Why the jurisdiction does not enter on pending cases, such as hot issues of gold traffic records, a really topical subject at the Ministry of Mines? No file or investigation has been opened in relation to all these files. So, we always wonder about the independence, autonomy of justice and equal treatment. »
” The object of the complaint, the condemnation which coincides with the return of the president to Malagasy land, the string is too big! laments Rivo Rakotovao, the national coordinator of the HVM. ” Realize: it is a verdict where the person concerned did not even have a file in his hands “, he adds.
The turn taken by this case also challenges civil society, like Faraniaina Ramarosaona, the coordinator of anti-corruption actions at the Rohy movement:
” We did not see it coming, this condemnation. It’s quite grotesque as a stratagem on the part of power. Now, we cannot forget that Mrs. Voahangy Rajaonarimampianina dabbled during her husband’s term in some dark affairs and corruption cases, alongside Mbola Rajaonah (sentenced to five years in prison last year for embezzlement of public funds, editor’s note). His name appeared several times. But she was never judged. »
So far, the Rajaonarimampianina couple refuses to comment. It is the first time, moreover, that a wife or ex-wife of a Malagasy head of state, since independence, has received a prison sentence.