The Government of Gabon assures that former President Ali Bongo and his family “do not suffer any form of torture”

May 17. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The transitional government of Gabon has stressed that neither former president Ali Bongo nor members of his family “suffer any form of torture”, after the former president and two of his sons began a hunger strike to denounce “acts of torture” to hands of the new authorities, who have kept him under house arrest since the August 2023 riot.

The lawyers of the Bongo family, François Zimeray and Catalina de la Sota, revealed this week in a statement the beginning of Bongo’s hunger strike against “acts of torture and barbarism” against his children and his wife, while confirming the filing a lawsuit before a French court.

“The Government firmly affirms that they do not suffer any form of torture or ill-treatment, as their lawyers have reported,” said the spokesperson for the Gabonese Executive, Laurence Ndong, who has also denounced inconsistencies in the version provided by the lawyers when announcing the beginning of Bongo’s hunger strike.

“There are contradictory facts that clearly demonstrate that there is an attempt to manipulate public opinion,” he indicated, before recalling that Bongo’s wife, Sylvia Bongo, and Noureddine, one of his sons, are detained “as part of a judicial procedure underway”.

Thus, he highlighted that both “are charged with acts of extreme seriousness” and added that Silvia Bongo herself “has access to her lawyers”, as reported by the news portal Gabon Media Time. “You can’t talk about kidnapping, she was in court yesterday,” he concluded.

Ndong herself had reacted harshly on Wednesday to Bongo’s accusations, which she called “slander”, and announced that “the Government reserves the right to take legal action” against complaints that “damage the image of Gabon”. “The comments of the lawyers of Ali Bongo Ondimba’s family are unfounded,” she concluded.

The former president remains under house arrest in his home in the capital Libreville, along with two of his children, Jalil and Bilal. The military junta sent Sylvia Bongo and Noureddin to prison to await trial on corruption charges brought against them following Bongo’s overthrow.

Bongo was overthrown in a coup led by General Brice Oligui Nguema, who established the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI), the official name of the military junta set up after the coup. The coup plotters denounced “false” results of the elections held days before, in which the then president received 64.27 percent of the votes, compared to 30.77 percent of his main rival, Albert Ondo Ossa.