A former French soldier arrested in 2021 in the Central African Republic and accused of espionage was evacuated to Paris for health reasons, his sister announced on Sunday May 21. Juan Rémy Quignolot, 57, had spent sixteen months in preventive detention in Bangui before being released under judicial supervision in September 2022, the prosecution already citing health reasons.

“We welcomed him this morning at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport,” his sister Caroline Quignolot announced by telephone, confirming information from the Parisian. “He left on May 18 from Bangui and passed through Gabon”, whose president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, played “the role of mediator” between Paris and Bangui, she assured. “We are immensely relieved. My brother is very physically challenged and needs to rest,” Ms. Quignolot concluded.

Mr. Quignolot was arrested on May 10, 2021 at his home in Bangui. Photos had immediately leaked in social networks and the local press showing him with his hands tied behind his back, an imposing military arsenal at his feet, seized from his home according to the prosecution. France immediately denounced “a manifest instrumentalization” of which it implicitly accused Russia.

Bodyguard for several Central African organizations

Relations between Bangui and Paris had deteriorated deeply since 2018 and the massive arrival in its former colony of mercenaries from the Russian group Wagner. Paris regularly denounces disinformation campaigns fed from Moscow and feeding anti-French sentiment in the Central African Republic. And deplores the growing influence of Wagner in this Central African country among the poorest in the world and which is struggling to recover from a very long and deadly civil war.

A trial before a criminal court in Bangui for “espionage” and “illegal possession of weapons and ammunition of war” had been heard and then adjourned several times, Mr. Quignolot not appearing for health reasons. Citing a medical report “making it clear” that “his state of health continues to deteriorate” and “risk[s] to be detrimental to the life of the accused”, the presiding judge accusation of the court of appeal, Laurent Ouambita, “authorized his exit from the national territory” in an order dated May 17, of which Agence France-Presse (AFP) obtained a copy.

The judge clarified that “the accused may appear before the Criminal Court (…) as soon as his state of health improves”. He faces hard labor for life. Mr. Quignolot had worked for several organizations in the Central African Republic as a bodyguard, according to humanitarian sources. “And had a short stint in the French army in his youth,” according to a diplomatic source. This father of four is a “retired French army sergeant”, assures Judge Ouambita in his order.

“A president who is hostage to the Wagner Group”

The Central African Republic was plunged into a new, very deadly civil war in 2013, which culminated in 2018. Subsequently, countless armed groups shared two-thirds of the territory and its mineral wealth, notably gold and diamonds. In December 2020, the most powerful, grouped within the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), launched an offensive on Bangui to overthrow President Faustin Archange Touadéra.

The latter had called on Moscow to the rescue of his impoverished army, and hundreds of Wagner’s paramilitaries had landed, in reinforcement of hundreds already present since 2018. It is thanks to their intervention that the armed groups were repelled from most of the territories they controlled. They have been carrying out guerrilla actions ever since. The UN and international NGOs regularly accuse the rebels, as well as Wagner and Central African soldiers, of crimes against civilians.

On May 30, 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron castigated “predatory Russian mercenaries at the top of the state with a President Touadéra who is now hostage to the Wagner Group”. A few days later, Paris froze its budgetary aid. And, on December 15, 2022, the last French soldiers left the Central African Republic after sixty-two years of a strong postcolonial military presence. Relations have, however, timidly warmed up recently following a meeting between MM. Macron and Touadéra in Libreville, in early March, on “facilitation” from Gabon. The Central African ambassador in Paris, Flavien Mbata, had spoken of his country’s desire to “rebuild the bonds of trust” with France.