2023-11-06 23:57:44
The Ouagadougou administrative court on Monday ordered the release of a Burkinabè businessman “kidnapped” in mid-September by intelligence agents.
“The kidnapping of Mr. Kambou Sansan Anselme by agents of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) is manifestly illegal and constitutes a serious attack on his freedom to come and go,” according to an order made public at the ‘result of a summary hearing
Consequently, he ordered the Burkinabè State “through the ANR to immediately put an end to the detention of Mr. Kambou Sansan Anselme and allow him to return to his home.”
Influential businessman at the head of a purchasing center that sells arms, Sansan Anselme Kambou was kidnapped on the night of September 20 in front of his home by armed men presenting themselves as agents of the ANR , before being taken to an unknown destination, according to members of his family.
Mr. Kambou is close to the former chief of staff of the Burkina Faso gendarmerie, Lieutenant-Colonel Évrard Somda, dismissed at the beginning of October after the arrest of two of his former collaborators for their alleged involvement in an attempted coup d’état, foiled by the military authorities.
Several cases of kidnappings have been reported in recent months by local sources in Ouagadougou.
Voices are also being raised to denounce recent “requisitions” of citizens critical of the government by the military authorities.
In April, a general mobilization decree was adopted allowing, if necessary, the requisition of “young people aged 18 and over” in order to fight against the jihadists who regularly carry out bloody attacks in the country.
On Monday, the Patriotic Front, a coalition of several dozen political parties and citizen organizations, noted that “requisitions for the war front were addressed to Burkinabè citizens, most of them civil society actors who expressed discordant voices vis-à-vis the transitional authorities”.
The coalition “is concerned and condemns” an “authoritarian drift” of the regime.
The “Le balai Citoyen” movement, at the origin of the popular insurrection which led to the fall of former President Blaise Compaoré in 2014, for its part indicated that two of its members had been “requisitioned”.
On Sunday, a human rights association in Burkina Faso also denounced a “massive and targeted requisition of citizens” critical of the government.
And a collective of unions also deplored “a relentless attack against citizens who have expressed critical opinions towards the transitional authorities”.
“Individual freedoms do not take precedence over those of the Nation,” said Monday the president of the transition, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power through a coup in September 2022.
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been caught in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group, which has left more than 17,000 civilian and military dead and more than two million internally displaced.
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