The trial of former Guinea-Bissau Finance Minister Souleymane Seydi and former Secretary of State of the Treasury António Monteiro, accused of corruption, will begin this Monday at the Bissau Court of Appeal.
The two were charged as co-authors of crimes related to abuse of power, budget violations, embezzlement and tax fraud, while António Monteiro was also charged separately with the crime of economic participation in a business.
We are talking about obtaining a bank loan to pay six billion CFA francs (nine million euros) to pay off public debts to 11 businessmen.
The case comes to court just over three months after the arrest of two government officials who have been in preventive detention since the night of November 30, 2023.
Early the next morning, security forces and military personnel were involved in a firefight after National Guard units removed the two leaders from the judicial police cells.
The President of the Republic, Umaro Sissoko Embalo, considered these events an attempted coup and, failing to pass the constitutional deadline of 12 months after the legislative elections, dissolved the National People’s Assembly by a majority of the PAI-Terra Ranca, a coalition led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). ), who won the elections six months ago.
Last Thursday, the day the trial began, Sissoko Embalo received the presidents of the Supreme Court, the Military Court and the Attorney General of the Republic at a joint hearing, the details of which were not disclosed.
On Saturday, the president of the Guinean Human Rights League, Boubacar Toure, asked for impartiality in the trial in a statement by Luse, stressing that it was “a process of great importance in terms of educating the country and society.” to the international community about what really happened” in the entire process that led to the indictment of the former rulers.
For the League, this process “is the moment of truth” and hopes that it will be “open to the scrutiny of ordinary citizens as well as the media, but above all that it will be a transparent process and that judges, magistrates, justice professionals act in this process with complete independence, with complete impartiality, applying exclusively the law and one’s conscience.”
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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