The former first lady of Gabon is accused of obtaining stolen property among other offences.
Indimba Bongo Sylvia A month after a coup overthrew her husband, Valentin, the wife of Gabon’s deposed president Ali Bongo Ondimba, has been charged with “money laundering” and other charges, the public prosecutor announced on Friday (Sept. 29).
According to Andre Patrick Roponat, Sylvia Bongo Ondimba Valentin was charged by an investigating magistrate on Thursday (Sept. 28).
“”A dozen compatriots were arrested and charged with criminal and misdemeanor offences, and some were remanded in custody. It was in this context that Madame Sylvia Bongo Ondimba Valentin appeared before the examining magistrate on the 28th of September 2023. She was charged with money laundering, receiving stolen goods as well as forgery and fraud, all offences punishable under articles 116, 117, 312 and 380 of the Penal Code, before being placed under house arrest.” the prosecutor said.
Since her husband was removed from office on August 30, the former first lady has been unable to move freely.
Mrs. Bongo Valentin was placed under house arrest in Libreville at the time, according to the presidency, “for her protection.” Her French-based lawyers said she was “arbitrarily detained with her youngest son.”
This month, one of her attorneys claimed that she was being held “incommunicado outside of any legal framework.”
After the coup, Ali Bongo, who had been initially put under house imprisonment in Libreville, was thereafter deemed “free to move about” with the potential to “travel abroad.”
Their son Noureddin Bongo Valentin, along with a number of former cabinet members and two ex-ministers, has previously been charged with corruption and embezzling state monies.
Moments after being declared the winner of a presidential election, military leaders deposed Bongo, 64, who had ruled the country of central Africa since 2009.
The opposition and the organisers of the military coup have also accused his rule of extensive corruption and poor leadership, and they have called the results a fraud.
However, the junta adopted a harsher position towards the former first lady and the former first couple’s eldest son.
Following a stroke in 2018, the coup’s leader, general Oligui, accused the pair of “forging Ali Bongo’s signature and giving orders on his stead.”
After nearly 42 years in power, Ali Bongo took over when his father Omar passed away in 2009.
