The short protective seizure of Air Côte d’Ivoire on November 22, 2021, on the tarmac at Bamako airport, suffered procedural consequences and chin strikes between Abidjan and Bamako. The eponymous company opened a statement saying that it is foreign to the BNI Gestion affair.
The Ivorian government subsequently issued a press release by Amadou Coulibaly, Minister of Communication, Media and Francophonie, government spokesperson, expressing its “surprise” at the unfolding of events, believing that all arrangements will be made. to “prevent such assaults from recurring”.
And the press release (published strangely with the letterhead of the Ministry of Agriculture) to prosecute, estimating that Oumar Diawara is being prosecuted by the Ivorian justice for complicity in the abuse of corporate assets and money laundering amounting to 15 billion FCFA. This procedure, continues the Ivorian minister, follows “a complaint from the judicial agent of the Treasury following a transaction carried out in fraud of the interests of the State of Côte d’Ivoire, through the BNI, a state company and BNI Gestion, Company with majority public participation ”.
One downside, however, the Ivorian court’s decision seems to ignore the sentence handed down by the ECOWAS Court condemning, at the end of last October, the State of Côte d’Ivoire to pay 1.25 billion to the businessman in compensation. of the damages suffered in the BNI Gestion affair. The Ivorian state says it is using all legal channels to challenge the judgment.
Basically, the haste of Ivorian justice leaves one wondering. In the wake of the Abuja verdict, Oumar Diawara was summoned to appear first on November 17, but without being informed.
Protests from the businessman’s council will prompt the judge to postpone the appearance until November 25. Then drama: Oumar Diawara’s lawyers discover in the notification received that the person summoned to appear is not their client but a certain Ousmane Diarra. Error on the recipient?
The case is again postponed until Thursday, December 2, 2021 for regularization of the summons.
In the meantime, the secretary general of the Ivorian justice ministry appealed to the public prosecutor at the Bamako Court of Appeal for the opening of an investigation into the precautionary seizure of the Air Côte d’Ivoire plane.
