The massacre of opposition supporters by Guinea’s military junta in September last year amounted to a crime against humanity, the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said.
“As the deputy prosecutor of the ICC, I end this visit with the feeling that crimes of the order of crimes against humanity were committed,” Fatou Bensouda told reporters at the end of a three-day mission to Conakry on Friday.
Bensouda spoke of “atrocious crimes” committed on Sept. 28 in Conakry’s biggest stadium, adding, “men in uniform attacked civilians, they killed and wounded. In full daylight they mistreated, violated and submitted women to unprecedented sexual violence.”
A UN commission of enquiry had already reached a similar conclusion.
It investigated the incident when troops attacked opponents of Guinea’s military regime who had gathered for a rally. Soldiers shot, stabbed and beat protesters, publicly raping women.
It declared in a report published on Dec. 21 that “it is reasonable to conclude that the crimes perpetrated on September 28, 2009, and the following days could be qualified as crimes against humanity.”
The commission said the violence had resulted in at least “156 deaths or disappearances” and that “at least 109 women” had been victims of rape or other sexual violence.
The junta has said there were 63 deaths.
Despite her conclusions, Bensouda said Guinea could set an example if it was willing to bring the main perpetrators to justice.
“These few days working in Guinea confirmed that Guinean institutions and the ICC can work in a complementary way: Either Guinean authorities can prosecute the main people in charge themselves, or they will turn to the court to do it,” she said.
During her time in Guinea, Bensouda visited hospitals and held discussions with those in charge of dealing with emergency casualties, in trauma and maternity wards and in the morgue.
She also made a stop at the military camp where junta chief Moussa Dadis Camara was shot in the head in a failed assassination attempt on Dec. 3.
The ICC mission came as Guinea announced a transition government to steer the country from military to civilian rule, with elections expected in June.
Colonel Siba Lohalamou, considered close to former regime leader Moussa Dadis Camara, stayed on as the justice minister.
In December the UN report said Camara and his aides bore “individual criminal responsibility” for the stadium massacre.
Among those mentioned was Moussa Tiegboro Camara, who is also part of the interim government despite being “squarely implicated in the September 2009 stadium massacre,” Human Rights Watch reported earlier this week.
But a junta-appointed commission this month absolved the former regime chief, who is convalescing in Burkina Faso since the assassination attempt, of blame over the stadium incident, saying he is “guilty of nothing.”
On Friday, Senegalese magistrate Amady Ba, head of cooperation in the office of the prosecutor at the ICC in The Hague, told the press: “We expect that the court will not allow a sham of an enquiry or a mock trial.”
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