Free to go, but far away. A week after the coup that led to his downfallthe deposed president of Gabon, Ali Bongo, is “free of his movements” and “can go” abroad for medical reasons, announced Wednesday evening General Brice Oligui Nguema who overthrew him a week ago .
“Given his state of health, the former President of the Republic Ali Bongo Ondimba is free to move around. He can, if he wishes, go abroad to carry out his medical checks there, ”announced the soldiers in a press release, read on public television, from General Oligui.
Bongo was shown a few minutes later by public television receiving Abdou Abarry, the UN secretary general’s special representative in central Africa, at his home in Libreville. We see him smiling and still moving with difficulty since his stroke, but without his usual cane.
Charges against Sylvia Bongo and Noureddin Bongo Valentin
Bongo, 64, in power for 14 years, following his father Omar, was placed under house arrest during the military coup that was carried out on August 30 less than an hour after his camp declared his re-election with 65% of the vote. General Oligui and his supporters accuse him of rigging the elections.
The latter, proclaimed transitional president mondayalso accuses the family circle, in particular his wife Sylvia Bongo and one of his sons, Noureddin Bongo Valentin, both in detention, along with members of his cabinet, of having “mively embezzled public funds” and led the country in an “irresponsible and unpredictable manner” by manipulating an Ali Bongo weakened by a serious stroke in 2018. Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo are accused of having been the “true leaders of the country” and of having maintained a gigantic network of corruption, in particular by manipulating the head of state who, him, does not have prisoner status.
Gabon: soldiers announce end to Ali Bongo’s regime on television
Her Parisian lawyers announced that Sylvia Bongo was “held incommunicado” and “arbitrarily” somewhere in Gabon. Noureddin Bongo and the six other so-called members of the “Young Guard” of the presidential palace arrested with him, are detained in particular for “high treason, mive embezzlement of public funds, international financial embezzlement in an organized gang, forgery and use of forgery, falsification of the signature of the President of the Republic, active corruption, drug trafficking”.