Sierra Leone: ex-president Koroma charged with treason over failed coup last November

Sierra Leone’s former president Ernest Bai Koroma has been charged with treason, with officials saying the failed military coup in November that aimed to topple the West African country’s government was led mainly by his bodyguards
The ex-president has been charged with four offenses for his alleged role in the attempted coup in which gunmen attacked military barracks, a prison and other sites in Sierra Leone on 26 November, freeing about 2,200 inmates and killing more than 20 people, a court in the capital Freetown said Wednesday (3 January). Koroma, who led the West African nation from 2007 to 2018, had been summoned for questioning in early November, with authorities saying he was an official suspect in the organization of the coup attempt. The charges were read out to the former president as some of his supporters cried in the courtroom. A total of 12 people have been charged with treason in connection with the coup attempt, including Amadu Koita, Korma’s bodyguard.
The court’s decision could further escalate tensions in the West African country that have been simmering after the attempted coup and a contentious election in which President Julius Maada Bio was reelected for a second term in June 2023. Frictions have been on the rise in the country that is still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war in which more than 50,000 were killed. “A dangerous precedent has been set … We are dragging a former head of state — democratically elected — on trumped up charges under a political vendetta,” Koroma’s lawyer, Joseph Kamara, told the media.