The complaint for arbitrary detention, filed on 1is September 2023 against the regime established in Libreville, by the lawyers of the former deposed presidential couple was dismissed by the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Following this rejection and this news, widely reported by the Ile-de-France press, the lawyers of Ali Bongo Ondimba and his wife reportedly contacted the UN Working Group so that it could recognize the “arbitrary detention” of the former presidential couple and three of their children.
The former first lady, Sylvia Bongo Valentin and the couple’s eldest child, Nourredine Bongo Valentin, were arrested and detained at the central prison of Libreville, the day after the coup d’état which brought to power on September 30 2023, the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI) headed by Brigadier General, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguéma, President of the Transition.
They are being prosecuted, among other things, for various financial crimes, drug trafficking, forgery and use of forgery and imitation of the signature of the President of the Republic.
As for Ali Bongo Ondimba, he has since lived under house arrest, with two (2) of his sons, in La Sablière, a neighborhood located in the northern suburbs of Libreville, without any legal proceedings being officially notified to him to date. .
The referral to the UN Working Group by the Bongo/Valentin lawyers aims to establish that the former presidential couple and their children “are victims of kidnapping outside any legal framework”we specify.
In a similar case, the UN contacted the regime of Ali Bongo Ondimba to request the release of Brice Laccruche Alihanga, the former Director of the presidential cabinet, in disagreement with the government. Categorical refusal from Libreville which spoke of interference in an internal matter in Gabon, although a member country of the UN Human Rights Council at the time.
Elliott to Ana Mervei
2024-04-16 14:17:33
#Bongo #Valentin #rejected