Guinea’s ex-military leader Moussa Dadis Camara on Monday denied charges that he was responsible for a 2009 stadium massacre, reported The Aljazeera.
Notably, Camara was Guinea’s when during the time when more than 150 people were killed during a political rally in a Conakry stadium in September 2009. Tens of thousands of people had gathered at the stadium to force him not to contest a presidential election the following year.
Human rights investigators interviewed many witnesses and reported that Camara’s aides were at the stadium and took no steps to stop the violence.
He and 10 other former military and government officials are accused of the massacre and the rape of at least 109 women by forces supporting Guinea’s military government. They face charges including murder, sexual violence, kidnappings, arson and looting.
Camara has pleaded not guilty to all charges and blamed errant soldiers for the bloodshed.
“The events of September 28 were a cleverly orchestrated plot to remove me (from power),” he said in a statement in which he accused former allies of plotting against him.
Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, who is also among the accused, has denied the charges. In October, he told the court that Camara planned and ordered the violent massacre.
Camara came to power in December 2008 after the death of Guinea’s second post-independence president, General Lansana Conte, who had ruled for 24 years.
In December 2009, Camara was wounded in the head in an attempted assassination and went to Morocco for medical treatment. He fled into exile in Burkina Faso, where Guinean magistrates indicted him in July 2015 for his alleged role in the stadium massacre.
The former strongman was detained on September 27 this year, a day before the long-awaited trial began in Conakry.
Guinea is currently ruled by a military junta that came to power in a coup last year, ousting president Alpha Conde.
