2023-10-13 09:28:00
Sylvia Bongo is in prison. The Franco-Gabonese wife of the former president of Gabon Ali Bongo, under house arrest since a military coup at the end of August for alleged embezzlement of public funds, was incarcerated on the night of October 11 to 12 at the Libreville central prison. She was charged in particular with “money laundering and forgery and use of forgery” on September 28. She was “temporarily incarcerated” in the middle of the night after an endless new hearing by an investigating judge, her lawyer Gisèle Eyue-Bekale told AFP. The latter requested and obtained a referral for a hearing in ten days, which will allow her to “pleading for release”.
The former first lady, aged 60, is at the heart of a vast investigation into alleged economic crimes: massive embezzlement of public money in the company of her son Noureddin Bongo Valentin, already incarcerated, like six of their former relatives. -responsible for the presidential office, according to consistent judicial sources.
The central prison of Libreville is a prison with a sinister reputation and overcrowded. But Ms Bongo is “certainly” in the women’s section, “recently renovated, in a new wing where the inmates have their own bed, a bathroom and even a laundry room”, specifies Me Eyue-Bekale. Concretely, what are the facts with which he is accused?
A leading role at the top of the state
The soldiers who overthrew Mr. Bongo by accusing his entourage of having rigged his re-election, publicly suspected the former first lady and Noureddin of having “manipulated” the ex-president suffering from the after-effects of a serious stroke (AVC) in 2018, and for having been the “real” de facto leaders of the country for five years.
Noureddin Bongo has been in prison since the first day of the coup, charged in particular with “corruption” and “embezzlement of public funds”. “As long as there is a difference between justice and arbitrariness, between law and revenge, we will denounce this illegal procedure,” commented from Paris for AFP Me François Zimeray, Ms. Bongo’s French lawyer .
On the night of August 30, less than an hour after the announcement of the re-election of Ali Bongo Ondimba, the army “put an end to the regime”. General Brice Oligui Nguema, leader of the putsch, was proclaimed president of the Transition two days later. He promised to return power to civilians through elections, but without setting a deadline and is adored by the vast majority of the population and the political class who applaud the military for having “liberated” them from 55 years of “Bongo dynasty”.
Ali Bongo was elected in 2009 following the death of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had ruled the country for more than 41 years. He was placed under house arrest on the day of the putsch, but declared free to move around a week later. The soldiers seemed to quickly exonerate him, considering that he was “manipulated” by his wife and their son.
The new power decided to dismiss the “foreign legion”
The night of the putsch, Noureddin Bongo as well as several of his young relatives and those close to his mother within the presidential cabinet were arrested and shown at the foot of countless trunks, suitcases and bags overflowing with bank notes for hundreds of millions of dollars. euros seized from their homes. Then indicted and imprisoned in particular for “corruption, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, criminal conspiracy, falsification of the signature of the President of the Republic and disruption of electoral operations”. As well as two former ministers, close to Noureddin and Sylvia.
“The first lady and Noureddin wasted Ali Bongo’s power,” declared General Oligui on September 18. “Since his stroke, they have forged the president’s signature, they gave orders in his place”, in addition to “money laundering and corruption”. “Who ruled the country then? », he asked himself.
Ms Bongo has crystallized, particularly since her husband’s stroke, a certain form of hatred in part of the population, which was reflected in the non-governmental media and on social networks. Accused with Noureddin of being at the head of a “foreign legion” running the country secretly and “massively” misappropriating public funds placed, according to their detractors, in accounts abroad, in shell companies in tax havens and in purchases of prestigious buildings in London or elsewhere.
General Brice Oligui Nguema has already promised to “review the conditions for granting Gabonese nationality. » “I am committed,” he said, “to ensuring that the centuries-old relations between the Gabonese and our foreign brothers will always be relations of great friendship, tolerance and harmony, [mais] politics and administration in a country are areas of national sovereignty, saying so is in no way xenophobia. »
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