BANGUI, CA Republic
The four soldiers of the French army operating under the banner of the UN arrested three days ago in Central African Republic and accused on social networks of having wanted to "assassinate" the head of state were released Thursday.
"The four staff members
of the Minusca (the UN mission in the Central African Republic) arrested at
Bangui airport have just been released," announced on Twitter the head of
the Minusca Mankeur Ndiaye. The information was confirmed by the French embassy
in Bangui, on Twitter, and by the Bangui prosecutor's office to AFP, without
further details.
The four soldiers of the
French army's Foreign Legion corps, of French, Romanian, Italian and Bulgarian
nationality, had been apprehended by security forces while wearing fatigues,
heavily armed and wearing their Minusca badges, aboard an unmarked armored
vehicle on Monday in front of Bangui airport.
The French embassy and the UN
immediately indicated that they were members of the close security of the chief
of staff of the UN peacekeeping force, General Stéphane Marchenoir, whom they
had just dropped off to catch a plane to Paris.
But immediately, photographs
of their arsenal well laid out on the ground as well as their identity papers,
like a video of their arrest, had been widely circulated on private accounts on
social networks, some accusing them of having wanted to "assassinate"
President Faustin Archange Touadéra who had just landed in Bangui.
The UN and France had
denounced a "gross manipulation" but the Bangui prosecutor's office
had opened the next day a "regular investigation to shed light on the
facts."
France regularly accuses the
Central African Republic of being "complicit" in an anti-French
campaign orchestrated by Moscow, notably through countless trolls on social
networks and in certain media.
For its part, Moscow blames
Paris for accusing Wagner's paramilitaries of having seized power and resources
in the country.
The opening of the
investigation came on the same day that France and the United States accused
Wagner's "mercenaries" of "executing" and
"massacring" dozens of civilians in January, through the voices of
their ambassadors before the UN Security Council.
Paris and Washington also
blame Russian paramilitaries for a "systematic" campaign of
"terror" in the Central African Republic, where they fight rebels
alongside the regular army.
A Russian diplomat at the UN
denied this and accused Paris and Washington of wanting to discredit Russian
"specialists" in the Central African Republic.
In this country in civil war
since 2013 and facing a threatening offensive of the rebellion more than a year
ago, President Touadéra had called Moscow to the rescue of his poorly trained
and destitute army and hundreds of Russian paramilitaries had been added to
many others present for three years. Unarmed instructors" according to
Moscow, "Wagner's mercenaries" according to the UN and France.
In a few months, they had
pushed back the armed groups that were then occupying two-thirds of the country
and recovered the vast majority of the territory. But at the cost of human
rights violations, the UN and France regularly accuse.
On board a "suspicious
vehicle", in possession of four automatic pistols, three assault rifles, a
machine gun and grenades, the four men were "less than 30 meters from the
passage of the presidential convoy", the Bangui public prosecutor, Laurent
Lengande, said on Tuesday, adding: "The vehicle had been followed by the
police intelligence services for two months".
On Wednesday, the UN Secretary
General, Antonio Guterres, demanded their "immediate release", saying
that the procedure established between the UN and the Central African Republic
in case of suspected offences concerning UN personnel "had not been
respected".
"The seriousness of these
arrests is not to be overlooked," a senior French military official told
AFP shortly after their release.
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