Guinea: which court to judge Alpha Condé who has an appointment with justice?

The judicial machine against former Guinean President Alpha Condé is launched. The Attorney General of Conakry Alphonse Charles Wright, appointed by the junta in power in Guinea since 2021, announced on May 4, 2022 the prosecution of the former head of state and around thirty former senior officials under his presidency, in particular for murder, torture and kidnapping.

The prosecutor of the court of first instance of Dixinn, in the suburbs of the Guinean capital Conakry, has been instructed to initiate the proceedings “without delay” for the alleged facts of “murder, assassination and complicity”enforced disappearances, detentions, kidnappings, acts of torture, intentional assault and battery, rape and sexual assault or acts of pillage.

Guinean justice is acting following the action initiated in January 2022 by the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), a collective which led for months from October 2019 the challenge against a third term of Alpha Condé . The repression of these protests, often brutal in this country accustomed to political violence, left dozens dead, almost all civilians. Alpha Condé, 84 years old today, was overthrown on September 5, 2021 during a putsch led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya at the head of his special forces.

Who will judge Alpha Condé?

Since the announcement of the legal proceedings, the question that many Guineans have been asking is the following: by which court will he be judged? In particular because of the concept of privilege of jurisdiction which stipulates that an individual, taking into account the functions he has occupied in society, cannot be judged by the same jurisdiction as an ordinary citizen. This is at least what the old Guinean Constitution, now dissolved, provided for the President of the Republic. “Are the Guinean courts capable, in particular that of Dixinn? Are there competent and courageous magistrates? Does the judicial infrastructure exist? Does the judicial tool exist to judge a former president?asks Abdoulaye Bah, one of the leaders of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, the main opposition party under Alpha Condé, on the news site Guineamatin.com. “We would have preferred the creation of a special court to judge crimes of blood.” Like the Court of Repression of Economic and Financial Offenses (Crief) which was created by the junta in December 2021.

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The information site Guineanews has also investigated the jurisdiction of this court to try the former president. According to some jurists, “the Crief has the full powers of the high court of justice. There is therefore no need to create another special jurisdiction to judge the blood crimes of which Alpha Condé and 26 other former dignitaries of his regime are accused. The Crief is therefore competent to judge the bloody crimes committed by the Presidents of the Republic and the ministers.” For other experts interviewed by the news site, the mission “devolved” to the Crief, vse are economic and financial crimes and misdemeanors”

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