World
Niger jails Journalist over alleged sahel security breach
A Nigerien-Ivorian journalist, Serge Mathurin Adou, has been sentenced to two years in prison for allegedly “violating” the security of Burkina Faso, sources told AFP on Monday.
Adou disappeared in Niamey, Niger’s capital, on September 1 after telling his wife he had been summoned by the police. Both Niger and Burkina Faso, which have experienced recent coups, have tightened restrictions on dissent, press freedom, and civil society.
The two countries, along with Mali, are members of the Alliance of Sahel States.
Several weeks later, Burkina Faso’s Security Minister Mahamadou Sana accused him of being one of the authors of an alleged “plot” and “several attempts to destabilise” the country, which is allied with Niger.
After being brought before the prosecutor’s office on November 11, Adou was charged with “violating the security of the state” and detained in the civil prison of Birni N’Gaoure, southwest of Niamey, according to Ivory Coast’s honorary consul Victor Akpro Akesse.
Adou “was sentenced to two years of imprisonment” on Friday, a source close to the case told AFP.
A source close to the journalist confirmed that a Niamey court had given him a two-year sentence.
Relations between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso have frayed considerably following Captain Ibrahim Traore’s seizure of power in the latter in September 2022.
Adou had been living in Niger for around 20 years and notably worked as a journalist for the private television channel Canal 3 in Niamey.
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