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The former president of Gabon, Ali Bongo, who was deposed in a coup d’état of 2023, left the country and is now in Angola, the authorities have announced there.
The Angolan Presidency added in a declaration published on social media that Bongo’s family had been released by detention and was with him in Luanda.
The Bongo family lawyer François Zimeray, welcomed the release of his customers and denounced their “arbitrary and cruel imprisonment”.
His wife and son of Bongo, Sylvia and Noureddin, face accusations of corruption and had been held since 2023.
They have not yet publicly commented on the accusations. However, Mr. Zimeray described its customers as “subjected to torture” while they were detained in those that were described as underground cells.
“Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo now will finally be able to turn the page, heal and reconstruct their lives,” said Zimeray.
The BBC contacted Gabon’s presidency for a comment on the release and subsequent departure of the Bongo family in Angola.
Previously the authorities denied having subjected to Sylvia Bongo and his son to cruel care.
The prosecutor Gabonese Eddy Minang states that the release of Mrs Bongo and his son is simply provisional, due to bad health and that the legal proceedings against the two will continue.
The exit of the family comes after the president of Angola João Lourenço, who currently directs the African Union, visited Libreville and held talks with his counterpart Gabonese Brice Oligui Nguema, the former general who led the coup d’état against Bongo before winning a landslide in the presidential elections last month.
Ali Bongo, whose father Omar has governed Gabon for more than four decades, has been in power for 14 years until the coup d’état of 2023.
After its reversal, she was put under home arrest where, according to reports, she remained, although the Gabonesi authorities say that she was free to move as she wanted.
His wife and son were detained in prison and then released at the beginning of this week following a request from the Bongo family lawyer, according to Mr. Minang.
Reacting to their release, the leader of the opposition Alain Claude Bilie-BY-CONTA said that the current president Oligui Nguema had bowed “to international requests after what everyone had understood to be an abuse of power”.
Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo are both accused of embezzlement of public funds, with Mrs. Bongo who is specific to accusations of falsification, recycling of money and falsification of documents.
During their 14 years in power, the Bongo family had been accused of having accumulated wealth for themselves at the expense of the country – accusations that deny.
Although Gabon is a nation full of oil, a third of its population lives below the poverty threshold, according to the United Nations.
In a sign of heating relations between Gabon and its continental counterparties, the African Union readmitted the country to its blockade at the end of last month after its registration had been suspended due to the coup.
In a statement, the president of the body, Mahmoud Ali Yousouf, said he hopes that “Gabon’s example will inspire paths similar to constitutional restoration throughout the continent”.
The military leaders of the West African countries Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso resisted the pressure from their neighbors to deliver power to civilians. [BBC]
