The Guinean court, which is trying Moussa Dadis Camara and a dozen other defendants for the massacre on September 28, 2009, ruled on Monday that he will remain behind bars for the course of his trial and will not be put under home arrest.
At the start of this historic trial on September 28th, the defense attorneys filed a number of further requests, all of which were denied by the court.
It concluded that the case’s merits hearings and the interrogation of the accused could get started.
On the eve of the trial, the prosecution had locked up the defendants who were still at large, including Captain Dadis Camara, who had recently returned from exile in Burkina Faso.
The lawyers of the former autocrat challenged his detention, and asked either for his release or his placement under house arrest, invoking the “respect” due to a former head of state.
The lawyers of another of the main defendants, Lieutenant Aboubacar Sidiki Diakité, alias “Toumba”, former head of the protection unit of Moussa Dadis Camara, have asked for the medical evacuation of their client, imprisoned since 2016 and sick according to them. He appeared very weak at the opening of the trial.
According to the law of criminal process, the accused must be imprisoned the day before their trial, and only foreign inmates are subject to the home arrest measure, the court’s president, Ibrahima Sory Tounkara, said on Monday.
As for Aboubacar Sidiki Diakité, he “did not provide any medical document to support his request for medical evacuation”, he said.
The court “rejects the request for the release of the defendants, for house arrest of Moussa Dadis Camara and for medical evacuation of Aboubacar Diakité known as Toumba,” he said.
It “orders the opening of the proceedings on the merits”.
Captain Dadis Camara and a dozen former military and government officials are charged with a litany of killings, rapes, torture and looting committed during the crackdown on an opposition demonstration on 28 September 2009 and the following days.
At least 156 people were killed and hundreds injured and at least 109 women were raped, according to the report of a UN-mandated international commission of enquiry.