Missing journo's car found
2004-05-07 11:23
Abidjan - The car belonging to independent journalist Guy Andre Kieffer, who disappeared from Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan nearly three weeks ago, was found on Thursday in an airport car park, sources told reporters.
The car, a Japanese model bearing a small Canadian flag sticker, has now been moved to the headquarters of Ivory Coast's judicial police in central Abidjan, where it is to be examined by French experts probing the disappearance of the Canadian-French journalist, a married father of three.
Sources speaking on condition of anonymity said Kieffer's car had been parked at the airport since he was declared missing April 16 when he was reportedly en route to a meeting with the brother-in-law of Simone Gbagbo, the wife of President Laurent Gbagbo.
The discovery of Kieffer's car came as his wife and brother, as well as the director of the press watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, arrived in Abidjan to file a lawsuit within the Ivory Coast judicial system.
Formal complaint
France last week opened a judicial inquiry into Kieffer's kidnapping and false imprisonment. The inquiry followed the formal lodging of a complaint with the Paris courts by Kieffer's wife, Osange Silou-Kieffer.
A correspondent for the French-published biweekly Lettre du Continent, a newsletter devoted to African issues, Kieffer was an economics journalist who specialised in commodities including Ivory Coast's main export crop, cocoa.
He had also served on a consulting committee that advised the government about cocoa which has since fallen out of favour with the Gbagbo administration.
Several times, after particularly cutting articles appeared, Kieffer was excoriated by the pro-government wing of Abidjan's fiercely partisan press. Only days before he disappeared, he confided to a friend that he had been receiving death threats.
For many in Ivory Coast, Kieffer's disappearance is a grim reminder of the murder in October last year of French radio correspondent Jean Helene, who was killed at point blank range by a police sergeant.