Early on Saturday, gunmen broke into the main jail in the capital of Guinea, freeing many inmates, including the former ruler Moussa “Dadis” Camara, according to police. However, the former strongman’s attorney then claimed that he had been abducted.
Prosecutor Yamoussa Conte said in a statement that he has given the go-ahead for authorities to look into accusations against Camara and three other people of fleeing from jail and possessing firearms.
But late on Saturday afternoon, Camara’s lawyer announced that her client was back at the central jail, being questioned.
“My client has not escaped; he has been abducted,” Jacomey Haba told The Associated Press.
Claude Pivi and Blaise Goumou, who had been arrested alongside Camara on suspicion of involvement in a 2009 stadium massacre that claimed 157 lives, were among the others who managed to flee.
“We will find them. And those responsible will be held accountable,” Justice Minister Charles Alphonse Wright, told local Radio Fim FM several hours after heavy gunfire erupted in the Kaloum district of the capital, Conakry.
Wright continued, “Moussa Thiegboro Camara, the fourth prisoner, has already been recaptured.”
In 2008, Camara took over in a coup that followed the demise of longstanding autocrat Lansana Conte. After escaping an attempted assassination by one of his bodyguards, Camara spent years living in exile before travelling back to Guinea in late 2021.
More than a dozen people have been prosecuted in relation to the 2009 massacre, in which protesters peacefully protesting against his decision to run for president after seizing power in Guinea were shot by security personnel.
The government of Guinea had been working for years to stop Camara from returning from exile in Burkina Faso because they thought it would fuel political unrest. But in September 2021, another coup installed a military regime in Guinea that was more receptive to Camara’s comeback.
Camara stated in court last year that he was asleep during the attack’s early hours and that he was informed that protestors had
