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The trial begins on Wednesday of 11 men accused of responsibility for a 2009 stadium massacre and mass rape by Guinean security forces that survivors and family members hope will bring them justice after 13 years.
Eleven men, including former president and military ruler Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, have been indicted and will face trial for responsibility in the massacre of over 150 people and the rape of at least a dozen women in Guinea’s capital, Conakry.
Camara has denied responsibility for the incident, blaming it on errant soldiers, including his former aide-de-camp Lieutenant Aboubacar Toumba Diakite, who is also among those indicted. He has also denied responsibility.
On September 28, 2009, tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators held a protest in the stadium to pressure Camara not to stand for election as president of Guinea the following year.
Reporting from Conakry, FRANCE 24’s Sophie Lamotte said the trial, in a new special tribunal courthouse, was supposed to start at 9am local time. But there was a “slight change of plans”, explained Lamotte, because the authorities “decided to have an inauguration of this new tribunal courthouse” before the start of the trial.
Survivors of the September 28, 2009 massacre have waited 13 years for justice, and expectations have been high ahead of the trial. “We spoke to the lawyer of some of the families who has been working on this case and he said that there’s so much importance put on this inauguration, that he fears that it takes away from the depth of this trial. He fears that authorities could be making this judicial affair into a political one,” said Lamotte.
‘I still haven’t processed what happened’
Asmaou Diallo was at the 2009 protest, where she was assaulted and barely escaped with her life. In an interview with Reuters, Diallo explained that her son was killed in front of her on that fateful day.
“The most shocking image for me that day was that of the body of my slain son. I still haven’t processed what happened,” said Diallo, who now heads an association of parents and victims of the massacre.
“Knowing that this trial will take place is for all the victims the beginning of hope for deliverance,” she said.
After prolonged investigations and repeated delays by the previous government, the military government that seized power in September last year gave an order that the trial should start no later than September 28, the anniversary of the massacre.
Camara, who was in exile in Burkina Faso following an attempted assassination and his ouster in 2009, returned to Guinea over the weekend.
He was interviewed by a prosecutor and detained on Tuesday alongside two other former senior military officers, their lawyer Pepe Antoine Lamah told journalists.
“It is in violation of the law that the prosecutor decided to incarcerate my clients,” Lamah said.
At least 600 victims of the stadium incident have been identified, according to Alseny Sall, spokesperson for the Guinean Organisation for Human Rights.
Sall said some 154 were killed that day by soldiers from the presidential guard, the military police, the police, and military trainees as about 50,000 people gathered at the stadium to protest.
Some relatives of those killed have said they never received their loved ones’ remains.
“The hardest thing for me was not being able to mourn my husband. His body disappeared and was never returned to us. It’s a situation that weighs on me,” said Salimatou Bah, a rice seller.
“All we want is justice. This trial must ensure that such things never happen again in this country,” she said.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)
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