International News

BAMAKO, (MILLATT+APP/AFP) – An army officer who led
Mali’s 2012 coup against then president Amadou Toumani Toure will
stand trial on November 30 for murder and collusion over the
massacre of soldiers who opposed the takeover.
The coup headed by Amadou Sanogo toppled what had been
heralded as one of west Africa’s most stable democracies and
precipitated the fall of northern Mali to Al-Qaeda-linked groups
until a French-led military operation forced them out of
the towns.
An official communique received by AFP Friday said a
Bamako court would hear “the case of Amadou Sanogo and several
others accused of kidnapping, murder and collusion.”
After Sanogo and his military junta seized power in the
largely desert nation in March 2012, several dozen paratroopers
known as the “Red Berets” who had supported the ousted president
were seized.
The regiment had mounted an unsuccessful counter-coup a
month after Sanogo toppled Toure.
By December 2012, almost 30 of the missing soldiers’ bodies
were found in ditches near Kati, a garrison town outside the capital
Bamako, where Sanogo had set up his headquarters.