Police in South Africa yesterday said that they had arrested anti-Western activist Kemi Seba, who is wanted in Benin for “inciting rebellion” after he supported a foiled coup in December last year.
Seba, whose real name is Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi, heads the Pan-Africanist Emergency non-governmental organization, and is known for his tirades against France and African governments allied with Paris.
He and his 18-year-old son were arrested on Monday at a Pretoria shopping center with another man who had allegedly been paid to help them illegally enter Zimbabwe, police said.
Photo: AFP
From there, they intended to travel to Europe, police said.
“Preliminary investigations have revealed that the father is alleged to be a wanted fugitive in France and Benin for criminal activities relating to crimes against the state,” police said in a statement.
The case was postponed until April 20, and Seba and his son remained in police custody as extradition processes were under way, the statement said.
Benin, a former French colony, issued an international warrant for his arrest on Dec. 12 last year after he supported a foiled coup in which mutinous soldiers claimed on television to have overthrown Beninese President Patrice Talon.
The deadly coup attempt on Dec. 7 last year was put down in a matter of hours by the military with support from Nigeria and France.
Seba, who accuses Talon of being too close to former colonial master France, posted a video saying that it was “the day of liberation” for his country.
The warrant for his arrest was for “justifying crimes against state security and inciting rebellion,” Beninese authorities said.
The west African country jailed about 30 people after the coup, most of them soldiers, legal sources told reporters, while several mutineers were still on the run.
Born in France to parents from Benin, Seba has been sentenced in France several times for incitement to racial hatred and is often accused of anti-Semitism.
He was stripped of his French nationality in 2024.
The influencer has 1.5 million followers on social media and has been accused of being a mouthpiece “for Russian propaganda” and fueling anti-French sentiment.
He openly supports the military juntas that came to power through coups in the Sahel region and are hostile to Paris and close to Russia.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS