UN investigators say there is sufficient reason to believe that Guinea’s wounded junta leader is directly responsible for the mass killings and rapes of protesters in September, which they consider crimes against humanity, a UN diplomat said Monday.
The UN investigators also concluded that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that junta leader Captain Moussa “Dadis” Camara, the army officer who shot him in a dispute Dec. 3, and Guinea’s anti-drug chief bear “individual criminal responsibility” for the events of Sept. 28 and the following days, the Security Council diplomat said.
The 60-page report, in French, was transmitted to the UN Security Council, Guinea’s government, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States over the weekend. Its contents were first reported by Le Monde, the French daily.
On Sept. 28, soldiers loyal to Camara sealed off the exits to the national football stadium where tens of thousands of protesters had gathered to demand an end to military rule. Troops entered and fired their assault rifles, spraying bullets into the unarmed crowd, survivors have said.
The three-member UN commission, which interviewed 700 people to reach its findings, recommended that the International Criminal Court investigate those believed responsible for the killings, the envoy said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public.
The report said 156 people were killed or disappeared on Sept. 28 — 67 whose bodies have been returned to their families, 40 seen to be dead but whose bodies have disappeared, and 49 others who are missing and whose fate is unknown, the diplomat said.
The commission said at least 109 women or girls were victims of rape and sexual mutilation, others suffered “cruel and degrading treatment,” and dozens of people were arrested or arbitrarily detained in military camps, according to the diplomat.
The junta has insisted that only 57 people were killed and has denied all acts of rape or sexual violence.
The commission believes the authorities have been trying to erase the traces of all these violations and therefore believes the number of victims is much higher, the diplomat said.
It concluded that “there is sufficient reason to presume the direct criminal responsibility of president Moussa Dadis Camara” in the attack and violence the following day, the diplomat said.
In Guinea, Frederic Kolie, a Cabinet minister and a spokesman for the military junta, said authorities did not yet have the report and had no immediate response.
The report singled out the junta leader, Lieutenant Abubakar “Toumba” Diakite, the man who shot Camara on Dec. 3 and has been in hiding ever since, and the anti-drug chief, Commander Moussa Thegboro Camara, saying there are reasonable ground to suspect them of individual criminal responsibility in the Sept. 28 events, the diplomat said.
The commission said it has evidence of others suspected of involvement in the killings.
The UN commission said it is “reasonable to conclude” that the violence constituted crimes against humanity, the envoy said, the same conclusion reached by Human Rights Watch.
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