Niger’s junta has revealed that it foiled an escape attempt by ousted President Mohamed Bazoum who has been imprisoned by the military since a July 26th coup.
The interim authorities said that Bazoum and his family, with the help of accomplices in the security forces, planned to drive a vehicle to the outskirts of the capital Niamey, and catch a helicopter to neighboring Nigeria.
“At around three in the morning, the ousted president Mohamed Bazoum and his family, his two cooks and two security elements, tried to escape from his place of detention,” the regime’s spokesman Amadou Abdramane said on state television.
The escape bid failed and “the main actors and some of the accomplices” were arrested, he added in the broadcast late Thursday.
An investigation has also been launched.
The escape plan had involved Bazoum at first getting to a hideout on the outskirts of the capital Niamey, said Abdramane.
They had then planned to fly out on helicopters “belonging to a foreign power” towards Nigeria, he added, denouncing Bazoum’s “irresponsible attitude”.
Bazoum has refused to resign since he was toppled by the military on July 26. He is being held at his residence in the presidential palace along with his wife Haziza and son Salem.
In September, Bazoum’s lawyers said he filed a legal case with a court of the Economic Community of West African States against those who deposed him.
They also said they were taking his case to the UN Human Rights Council.
In another development, the first group of French soldiers, ordered out of Niger by its post-coup military rulers, arrived by road in N’Djamena, the capital of neighboring Chad on Thursday, October 19.
The convoy “has arrived without any particular problems” in N’Djamena after 10 days on the road and in coordination with Nigerien forces, army spokesperson Pierre Gaudilliere told Agence France-Presse.
The troops will depart by air from Chad to France, with the pullout expected to be completed by the end of December.
About 1,400 soldiers were based in the capital Niamey and western Niger to battle fighters linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.
