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Journalist 'disappears'
21/04/2004 10:18 - (SA)
Abidjan - Ivory Coast police are probing the disappearance last week of an independent Canadian-French reporter and have begun questioning his confidants in the main city Abidjan, a source familiar with the case said on Tuesday.
Details of the disappearance of Guy-Andre Kieffer, the married father of three children, remain sketchy. He was last seen on Friday at around midday in a commercial area in central Abidjan and according to local media was en route to a meeting with the brother-in-law of Simone Gbagbo, the wife of the Ivorian president.
His cellphone has since been turned off and his car has disappeared.
Both the French and Canadian embassies in the west African state, as well as the United Nations, are closely monitoring the case and have made overtures towards Ivorian authorities.
Rumours have swirled around Abidjan since the weekend with talk that the body of a white man was discovered but the tight-lipped international diplomatic corps says that nothing concrete has been established.
A long-time resident of Abidjan, Kieffer, 54, wrote for various media including the French-published Lettre du Continent.
He also served on a consultancy committee that advised the government about the main Ivorian cash crop cocoa that has since fallen out of favour with the Gbagbo administration.
If Kieffer is confirmed to have been killed it would mark the second death under questionable circumstances in six months of a foreign journalist in Ivory Coast.
Jean Helene, a correspondent for Radio France International, was shot at point blank range by a police officer in October.
- AFP
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