{"id":10406,"date":"2024-01-03T19:27:07","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T19:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=10406"},"modified":"2024-01-03T19:27:07","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T19:27:07","slug":"sierra-leone-ex-president-koroma-charged-with-treason-over-attempted-coup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/10406\/sierra-leone-ex-president-koroma-charged-with-treason-over-attempted-coup\/","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Leone ex-president Koroma charged with treason over attempted coup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma has been charged with four counts of treason in connection with an attempted coup.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Last November, gunmen broke into a military armoury and several prisons in Freetown, freeing almost 2,000 inmates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He has denied any involvement in the attack which killed about 20 people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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West African leaders had tried to broker a deal for Mr Koroma to go into exile in Nigeria if the charges were dropped, the BBC understands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The BBC has seen a letter saying Mr Koroma had agreed to the deal, brokered by the regional group, Ecowas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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However, Sierra Leone Foreign Minster Timothy Kabba told the BBC the government did not support the proposal, which he described as a unilateral proposition by the president of the Ecowas Commission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Some of Mr Koroma’s supporters cried in court as the charges were read out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The former president’s lawyer, Joseph Kamara, told the BBC he was “shocked and in utter disbelief”, saying the charges set a “dangerous precedent”.”A dark cloud has shadowed the skies of our country. Meaning that we are dragging a former head of state – democratically elected – on trumped-up charges under a political vendetta,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Koroma has been under house arrest since being questioned over the coup.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He was president for 11 years until 2018, when current President Julius Maada Bio was elected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Tuesday, 12 other people were charged over the attempted coup, including one of Mr Koroma’s former bodyguards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The former president’s daughter, Dankay Koroma, has previously been named on a list of wanted suspects by police. She has not commented.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The attempted coup came five months after a disputed election which saw President Bio narrowly re-elected for a second term.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The results were rejected by Mr Koroma’s All People’s Congress. International observers also criticised the elections, highlighting a lack of transparency in the count.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma has been charged with four counts of treason in connection with an attempted coup. Last November, gunmen broke into a military armoury and several prisons in Freetown, freeing almost 2,000 inmates. He has denied any involvement in the attack which killed about 20 people. West African leaders had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Africa News","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,27],"tags":[1801,1816,1770],"class_list":["post-10406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-attempted-coup","tag-ernest-bai-koroma","tag-sierra-leone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}