Camara not guilty of massacre
2010-02-02 22:56
Conakry - The president of a commission set up by Guinea's junta to probe a massacre of opposition supporters in Conakry last year on Tuesday absolved junta chief Captain Moussa Dadis Camara of any blame.
Instead it recommended legal action against Lieutenant Aboubacar Cherif "Toumba" Diakite, an aide to the junta leader who has been on the run since he shot and seriously injured Camara in an alleged assassination attempt on December 3.
Asked about the role of the junta chief and the minister for special services, Major Moussa Tiegboro Camara, commission president Siriman Kouyate said they had played no part in the massacre in which the UN says more than 150 people died.
"They were responsible for nothing. It is clear that the president (Camara) never went to the stadium" where the massacre took place, he told journalists.
Troops shot, stabbed and beat up opponents of the military regime who had gathered for a rally in a Conakry's biggest stadium on September 28. Many women were publicly raped by soldiers and some subsequently murdered.
A UN inquiry found that at least 156 people were killed or disappeared and allocated "individual criminal responsibility" to Captain Camara, his former aide de camp, and Major Camara.
Jurisdiction
The UN and Guinean and international human rights bodies accused Captain Camara and the troops involved of crimes against humanity.
A leading African human rights group called the junta report a whitewash and said the case should be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
"A petition to the International Criminal Court is indispensable so that Guinea can break away from impunity", said Mamadi Kaba, chief of the Guinea branch of African Encounter for the Defence of Human Rights.
The deputy prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, is due in Conakry on February 15 to decide whether the stadium massacre is in the jurisdiction of the court.
Kaba said the junta commision had been set up with the express purpose of "whitewashing certain authorities" and had done its job.
The junta commission president Kouyate said the blame lay with Toumba, members of the presidential guard and others.