The prosecution in the historic trial of a massacre committed in 2009 in Guinea requested on Monday March 4 the reclassification of the facts as crimes against humanity, noted an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent. Such a reclassification, if accepted by the court, would constitute a significant development in the search for justice for the victims and their loved ones. The proceedings were suspended until March 18 at the request of the defense after the requisitions of the representative of the prosecution, El Hadj Sidiki Camara.
Former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara and ten other former military and government officials have been answering since September 2022 in court for the massacre of September 28, 2009. On that day and the following days, members of the presidential guard, soldiers, police and militiamen repressing an opposition rally carried out abominations with unbridled brutality in and around a stadium in Conakry.
Victim figures probably underestimated
At least 156 people were shot, stabbed, macheted or bayoneted, hundreds injured and at least 109 women raped, according to the report of an international commission of inquiry mandated by the United Nations. (UN). The abuses continued for several days, against sequestered women and tortured detainees. The actual numbers are probably higher. It is one of the darkest episodes in the political history of Guinea, which has no shortage of them.
The representative of the prosecution recalled that the Guinean justice system had retained a litany of qualifications of assassinations, murders, acts of torture, intentional assault and battery, kidnapping, arson or even looting, but not that of crime against humanity.
A certain number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Human Rights Watch, are calling for the reclassification of the facts as crimes against humanity. The UN commission of inquiry also concluded that the acts committed on those days constituted crimes against humanity.
“Since the start of this trial, we have heard here from defendants, civil parties, witnesses. A certain number of documents, in particular medical certificates and reports, as well as photographs, are included in the procedural file,” said the public prosecutor. After analysis, the public prosecutor “considered that it was necessary to reclassify the facts” as crimes against humanity, he said. The lawyers of the numerous civil parties supported the prosecution's requisitions.
