Mali: Ex-Spy Chief Moussa Diawara arrested over journalist’s disappearance in 2016

Moussa Diawara, the former director of Mali’s State Security under Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, was arrested and charged with “complicity in kidnapping and abduction” in the disappearance of journalist Birama Touré. The former president’s son, Karim Keita, is also named in the case.

This is a new twist in the case of the disappearance of journalist Birama Touré, in which the name of Karim Keïta, the son of the former Malian president, is notably cited. While the investigation had been stalled since the Malian reporter disappeared on January 26, 2016, the process has suddenly accelerated.

On July 5, the Malian judiciary requested Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant for Karim Keïta, Malian judges wishing to hear him.

After the son of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK), it is the turn of Major General Moussa Diawara, former Chief of Staff of the National Guard, who also headed the State Security (Mali’s intelligence services) from 2013 to the fall of IBK in August 2020, to find himself implicated in this procedure.

Moussa Diawara was arrested at his home on Thursday, July 29, and charged with “complicity in kidnapping and abduction,” “torture,” and “criminal conspiracy” by the Commune-IV court in Bamako, a judicial source told Jeune Afrique.

This is the first charge in five years in the investigation into the journalist’s disappearance.