Mali / Ivory Coast: What you need to know about the release of the 46 soldiers.
Accused of being mercenaries, the 46 soldiers were sentenced to 20 years in prison before being pardoned on Friday by the Malian authorities. The case illustrates the climate of distrust of the outside world fostered by the ruling junta in Bamako.
Free at last. The 46 Ivorian soldiers accused by the Malian junta of being “mercenaries” and who had been detained since their arrest in Mali on July 10, 2022, were released on Saturday January 7. They arrived Saturday evening at Abidjan airport, where Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara was waiting for them. The soldiers had been pardoned the day before by the head of the Malian junta, Assimi Goïta.
This decision reverses the heavy sentence handed down to them on December 30, 2022 by the Bamako Court of Appeal. The 46 soldiers still detained were sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 2 million CFA francs (3,000 euros) each, while the three female soldiers of their contingent, released “on humanitarian grounds” by Mali at the beginning of September, were sentenced in absentia to the death penalty and fined 10 million CFA francs each.
All were convicted of “crimes of attack and conspiracy against the government, undermining the external security of the state, and possession, carrying and transporting weapons and munitions of war,” the prosecutor general said in a statement. Abidjan has repeatedly refuted these accusations, maintaining that the soldiers were sent to Mali to participate in the security of the German contingent deployed as part of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (UNMISMA).
Miss OLY
