At least nine people were killed in Conakry on Saturday in the commando operation in which heavily armed men temporarily released former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara and three fellow prisoners from prison, the public prosecutor’s office said on Monday morning.
These deaths included three suspected attackers, four members of the security forces and two occupants of an ambulance, apparently civilians, according to a preliminary assessment in a press release from Attorney General Yamoussa Conte.
The press had reported that civilians on board an ambulance had been injured by heavy gunfire from automatic weapons.
Men attacked the central prison in the heart of the capital in the early hours of Saturday morning and took out Moussa Dadis Camara and three other prisoners. All four are currently on trial for a 2009 massacre under his presidency.
Three of them, including Captain Dadis Camara, were recaptured the same day, without it being clear whether they had fled or been detained against their will, their lawyers say.
A fourth man, Claude Pivi, who is also one of the main defendants in the trial, remains on the run.
The Attorney General announced in his press release that he was opening a case against Moussa Dadis Camara and his three fellow prisoners for the murder of members of the security forces and manslaughter.
Moussa Dadis Camara and ten military and government officials have been in court since September 2022 answering a litany of murders, torture, rapes and other kidnappings committed by security forces on September 28, 2009 and the following days at a stadium in the suburbs of Conakry, where tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered, and the surrounding areas.
At least 156 people were killed, hundreds were injured and at least 109 women were raped, according to a report by a United Nations commission of inquiry.
The junta, which violently seized power in September 2021, released a series of texts on Sunday evening announcing the dismissal of dozens of soldiers and prison administration employees.