A former Prime Minister goes on trial in hospital

Former Guinean Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana and two other former ministers of the Alpha Condé regime have been under arrest since April 2022.

They are charged with embezzlement of public funds, illicit enrichment, money laundering and complicity.

As part of an investigation, Ibrahima Kassory Fofana is due to be questioned on his hospital bed by a judge from CRIEF, the body set up by the ruling junta to combat corruption.

The hearing will take place in the presence of a court clerk and the civil party’s lawyers.

Defense lawyer Sidiki Bérété expressed his indignation at the treatment meted out to his client.

“We have to leave him alone to respect his dignity… For me, it’s humiliation: we should let him get treatment and then (let him have the right to) a fair, contradictory trial. We need to find an argument, get him convicted and disqualify him politically, it’s simple otherwise the case is empty.”

According to reports, the CRIEF has already scheduled several unsuccessful hearings. In early November, his lawyers requested that he be medically evacuated.

Now that the case has been dismissed, the accused may have to answer to the judges in the clinic.