Guinean President appoints third Minister of Justice in less than a year

July 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The transitional president of Guinea, Lieutenant Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, has appointed this Friday the third Minister of Justice in the last ten months.

The president’s decree, read on national television on Friday night, names Alphonse Charles Wright – until now Attorney General of the Conacry Court of Appeal – as the new Minister of Justice, according to local media reports.

The ‘Guinee News’ portal has indicated that said decree does not specify the reasons for the dismissal of the now former minister Moriba Alain Koné, who was appointed to the Justice portfolio on December 31, 2021.

Koné, previously secretary general of the Ministry of Justice, replaced Fatoumata Yari Yansané Soumah, minister of said portfolio only between October and December 2021.

During the last week of June, Guinea began the process of political dialogue between the military junta, the opposition and civil society, on the sidelines of the transition process opened after the September 2021 coup that overthrew former president Alpha Condé.

Lieutenant Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, commander of the Guinean Special Forces, along with 500 men, staged a coup in the African country on September 5, 2021. The military entered the Sékhoutouréya Palace and captured then-president Alpha Condé , thus ending eleven years of regime.

The riot took place after months of political crisis in the country due to Condé’s decision to modify the Constitution to run for a third term and his victory in the 2020 presidential elections, in which the rest of the candidates, including the opposition leader, Cellou Dalein Diallo, denounced fraud.

The National Committee for Reconciliation and Development (CNRD), the body constituted by the Guinean coup military, announced on April 23 the release of the country’s former president Alpha Condé, held since the September 5 military coup.

Condé is awaiting a judicial process, along with 26 of his former officials, for excessive use of force, repression, kidnappings, rapes and attacks perpetrated against the civilian population during his mandate.