Burundi’s government has evidence linking a former president to an alleged plot to assassinate his successor and overthrow the government, a public prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Domitien Ndayizeye was arrested on Monday, joining more than a half dozen people, including two former high-ranking officials and a dissident rebel, already jailed on suspicion of involvement in the plot.
”Investigations led us to this person. There is evidence, but investigations are still going on,” public prosecutor Jean Bosco Ndikumana told Reuters. He gave no other details.
Earlier this month, the state said it had strong evidence, including tapes and written plans, that the alleged plotters planned to kill President Pierre Nkurunziza and seize power.
The former leader’s arrest spread tension and confusion across the tiny Central African country, which is tasting peace for the first time in more than a decade.
Prosecutor Ndikumana said an army officer and a former ruling party official, who gave themselves up to authorities last week, had been released on Wednesday.
”We have given them provisional releases because they had come forward and given us details [of the plot],” he said.
Critics have said the alleged plot was invented by the ruling party to crack down on the political opposition.
The government and prosecutors have denied it.
Burundi is generally seen as an African success story after ending a 12-year civil war that killed 300 000 people in ethnic reprisals between majority Hutus and the elite Tutsi minority.
Ndayizeye, a Hutu, was appointed to Burundi’s transitional government in April 2003, before Nkurunziza, who is also a Hutu, was sworn in last year after democratic polls.
Diplomats fear the alleged plot and arrests could destabilise the coffee-growing country, where stability is seen as essential for peace in Africa’s volatile Great Lakes region. — Reuters