PH
Lawyers representing Niger’s deposed president have said that they will file a legal lawsuit in the West African country against individuals responsible for the coup that removed the democratically elected leader.
In a statement, the lawyers for Mohamed Bazoum, who was jailed after being ousted on July 26, said they would petition to the UN Human Rights Council.
The lawsuit, obtained by AFP on Monday, is directed at General Abdourahamane Tiani and “all others.”
It is a civil lawsuit that asserts “attacks and conspiracies against state authority, crimes and offenses committed by civil servants, and arbitrary arrests and confinements.”
It is expected to be lodged in the next few days with a court in the capital Niamey, one of the lawyers, Dominique Inchauspe, told AFP.
The lawyers also said they were appealing to two bodies of the UN Human Rights Council including its working group on arbitrary detention.
Inchauspe said the coup was “an infringement on the dignity of the Nigerien state” and reaffirmed the “absolute necessity” to restore the rule of law.
Bazoum filed a lawsuit with a court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on September 18, his Senegalese lawyer Seydou Diagne has said.
He has been held in his residence since the coup.
On August 13, the coup leaders said they would pursue Bazoum for “high treason”.
