The ECOWAS Court of Justice has ordered the immediate release of 12 former soldiers belonging to the National Committee for the Recovery of Democracy and the Restoration of the State of Mali linked to the 2012 coup d’état in the Republic of Mali.
A statement by the court’s press unit on Wednesday stated that the court also ordered the payment of 20 million CFA francs to each of the 12 soldiers as compensation for the violation of the fundamental human rights by the Malian government.
Judge rapporteur Gberi-Be Ouattara, who was said to have delivered the judgment on Tuesday, held that the respondent, the Republic of Mali, was liable for violating the rights of Captain Issa Tangara, and 11 others including General Amadou Sanogo.
The court was said to have specifically held that their right to fair trial, be tried within reasonable time, presumption of innocence, liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention, were violated by the Malian government.
It also ordered the government to stop the violations and submit a report on the implementation/execution of the judgment to the court within six months.
The court equally ordered the Republic of Mali to bear all costs.
However, the court rejected the applicants’ claim for the violation of their right to human dignity and held that the claim was unfounded.
The applicants’ lawyers, Issa Coulibaly and Mariam Diawara, had in the suit marked, ECW/CCJ/CCJ/20/19 and filed on May 3, 2019, claimed that the applicants were victims of rights violations.
They sued the Malian government for 500 million CFA francs as individual damages for the prejudice suffered.
They noted that their clients were indicted for various offences including kidnapping, assassination and complicity in 2013, but maintained that their pre-trial process was marred by irregularities amounting to the violations.
The lawyers added that their clients were detained for over three years before their case file was transferred to the general prosecutor from the cabinet of the investigative judge.
They added that the applicants were in detention over five years without a date for judgment or sentence.
But the Malian government’s counsel, Mr Issaka Keita, urged the court to reject the applicants’ claims, arguing that the interim order for the applicants’ committal pending the hearing of the matter on its merit did not constitute rights violation.
He added that the national court had ordered another report on the findings at the request of the applicants and that no criminal sentence has been ordered.
He added that the applicants were not victims of arbitrary detention.
