The Malian military junta denies a failed assassination attempt against a presidential adviser

November 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Mali’s military junta has categorically denied an alleged failed assassination attempt against an adviser to its leader and transitional president of the country, Colonel Assimi Goita, according to several sources close to what happened to the French newspaper ‘Libération’.

According to the newspaper, on Wednesday, November 2, an unidentified sniper shot Captain Souleymane Traoré as he was leaving the Koulouba presidential palace, located on a hill in the capital, Bamako. The bullet hit the soldier’s chest, although it was stopped by the bulletproof vest he was wearing, according to three security sources.

Malian military authorities had previously denounced an alleged failed assassination attempt against Goita on July 20, 2021, or alleged coup attempts against the colonels, in November 2021 and May 2022.

However, the Malian government has this time completely denied this alleged attack against Captain Traoré, in what it describes as a “macabre scenario invented from scratch,” according to a statement published late Saturday by Maliweb.

The acting Prime Minister of Mali, Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, has instead accused the outlet of being “sponsored by obscurantist and retrograde forces”, with the sole objective of “creating psychosis and “desperately destabilizing the transition process” with an “unprofessional, shameless and immoral manoeuvre”.

The African country is now immersed in a transition process since Goita led the coup in August 2020 against the then Malian president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, and subsequently led a second coup in May 2021 against the transitional authorities – -at which point he overthrew the president and prime minister, Bah Ndaw and Moctar Ouane-, rising to power.