GABONESE PRESIDENT ALI BONGO ONDIMBA UNDER HOUSE ARREST – COUP LEADERS

August 30, 2023August 30, 2023

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A son of the president of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was detained for “treason” and placed under house arrest, military officials announced on Wednesday, hours after declaring they had ousted the government.

In a statement given out on national TV, they stated, “President Ali Bongo is under house arrest, surrounded by his family and doctors.”

The two main leaders of the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), as well as Bongo’s son and close adviser Noureddin Bongo Valentin, chief of staff Ian Ghislain Ngoulou, as well as his deputy, two other presidential advisers, and “have been arrested,” according to a military leader.

Among other things, he claimed, they are charged with treason, theft, corruption, and forging the president’s signature.

Earlier on Wednesday, hours after he had been declared the winner of the elections on Saturday, military officers said they had overthrown Bongo, who had been in power for 14 years.

They declared in a televised announcement that “all the institutions of the republic” had been dissolved and that the election results had been annulled.