Lawyers for Niger’s ousted president Mohamed Bazoum on Friday rejected “fabricated” claims by the country’s military rulers that he tried to escape their custody, noting the deposed leader was being “held incommunicado”.
“We strongly reject these fabricated accusations against president Bazoum,” Mohamed Seydou Diagne, coordinator of a lawyers’ collective, said in a statement.
Being held “incommunicado”, the lawyer added, was “a new red line which has been crossed by a junta which continues to violate the fundamental rights of our client”.
Late Thursday, the military regime which overthrew the democratically elected Bazoum on July 26 2023 said they had foiled an attempt by him to escape their custody.
“At around three in the morning, the ousted president Mohamed Bazoum and his family, his two cooks and two security elements, tried to escape from his place of detention,” the regime’s spokesman Amadou Abdramane said on state television.
The alleged escape bid failed and “the main actors and some of the accomplices” were arrested, he added.
Abdramane said the escape plan had involved Bazoum at first getting to a hideout on the outskirts of the capital Niamey.
They had then planned to fly out on helicopters “belonging to a foreign power” towards Nigeria, he added.
Since he was toppled, Bazoum has refused to resign and had been held at his residence in the heart of the presidential palace along with his wife Haziza and son Salem.
The regime has not said where he is being held now.
