Nine people, including several soldiers, have been arrested in Benin and will appear before the Beninese Special Court of CRIET for “for having committed acts contrary to the peace, acts likely to qualify as terrorism,” said Wednesday evening government spokesperson.
This information had been circulating for several days, after the publication by the magazine Jeune Afrique of an article reporting “an aborted coup attempt”.
“Some of our compatriots have indeed been brought before the competent court, the one in charge of acts of terrorism” confirmed Alain Orounla, the government spokesman after the Council of Ministers, however specifying that the case is ” during the investigation phase and nothing confirms that these different individuals were preparing to perpetrate anything “.
According to a source within the CRIET, a special Court of Justice set up under the chairmanship of Patrice Talon, nine soldiers and civilians including the driver of Colonel Montan Kérékou, son of former President Mathieu Kérékou have been placed under mandate deposit.
The soldiers implicated are not senior officers, said this source.
“They were tapped and they were spun without their knowledge. The project was advanced and they planned to go to Nigeria to buy weapons,” said the statement.
Rumors also mentioned the involvement of “foreigners involved in the coup project”, but the CRIET denied this information, ensuring that two Pakistanis had indeed been arrested in the north of Benin for suspected terrorism “in this highly Islamized sensitive area”, but that the two cases were not linked.
A source in the army for his part confirmed to AFP that “several soldiers are in detention for various and varied facts”.
“It would be difficult to link these facts, most of which are under investigation to an attempted coup,” nonetheless proclaimed a high ranking officer at the headquarters, on condition of anonymity.
It is the second time under the Talon presidency that Benin has mentioned a situation of attempted coup.
In August 2019, a similar case had already caused a stir after the celebration of Independence Day and soldiers had been arrested without any action on this file.
President Patrice Talon is accused by his detractors of having engaged Benin, a country renowned as a democratic example in West Africa, in an authoritarian turn.
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