In Gabon, the path is narrow for Brice Oligui Nguema, between the commitments given after the overthrow of Ali Bongo on August 30, 2023, the pressure to make Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo pay a high price for the embezzlement of which they are accused, and his probable aspirations to be elected at the end of the transition. For the putschist general, former head of the Republican Guard, the arrest of the wife and son of the deposed president were among the first justifications for the coup. Nearly six months later, the Bongo family could constitute a thorn in the officer’s side.
Ali Bongo, whose state of health remains worrying since his stroke in October 2018, did not benefit from the freedom promised in September and is still under close surveillance at his residence in La Sablière, in Libreville. His wife and son, incarcerated before even being brought before the investigating judge, would be “deprived of their rights” and victims of “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, according to François Zimeray, the mandated lawyer. by the family after the putsch, former ambassador for human rights of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Neither their relatives nor their lawyers had permission to visit Ali, Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo, explains a member of the clan which ruled Gabon continuously from 1967 to 2023. All three would be deprived of communication with the outside world, denounces Me Zimeray, who, while traveling in Gabon, tried in vain to see his clients on two occasions. The French lawyer, who is not registered with the Libreville bar, would not have taken the formal steps during working days, justifies a source close to power. Their Gabonese lawyer, who only saw her clients once in the investigating judge’s office in October, would never have come forward, explains the same source.
Personal chef
Noureddin Bongo is reportedly locked up today in the former cell of Brice Laccruche Alihanga, Ali Bongo’s former chief of staff, imprisoned for four years for embezzlement and money laundering. Released, he described his prison experience as “hell”, from which he emerged more than 30 kg thin. The son of the deposed president would therefore now live in “a 9 m² dungeon, with a hole in the ground as a toilet and a door that only opens once a day to collect the inmate’s trash”, reports a source within the central prison. According to this source, he suffered “inhumane” treatment under the watch of his mother, Sylvia.
“It’s a show,” retorts a member of the Bongo family, far from political life, to contradict the accusations of torture, while conceiving that the conditions of detention are “psychologically harsh” and “uncomfortable for people who have never known a difficult life.” According to him, the family would ensure that they were well treated. The former first lady would be entitled to her personal chef and would sleep in the comfort of the infirmary of the women’s remand center, a building renovated in 2022.
“We must not forget that it is family, after all,” adds this source in reference to the blood ties that unite the deposed president to the head of the transition: the mother of Brice Oligui Nguema was a cousin of that of the former president Omar Bongo.
More broadly, the general has every interest in not mistreating Ali Bongo and his relatives if he wants to maintain the favor of the Teke people, who constitute the majority of voters in the Haut-Ogooué region, the former Bongo stronghold.
The presidency thus says it refuses to enter into an “information war” regarding this file managed with the greatest confidentiality at the Seaside Palace. But apart from the family proximity which obliges it to have a certain reserve, the general Oligui Nguema seeks to maintain his flattering image internationally. The officer made a verbal commitment, according to one of his advisors, to the Elysée to respect human rights and those of the former presidential family.
Turn the page
In Libreville, the file is being followed closely by French diplomats. The French consul was the only person authorized to see the two detainees, both French nationals, at the central prison. Under consular protection, a visit was paid on November 28 to Sylvia Bongo and another on January 19 to Nourredin Bongo and her mother in order to ascertain their conditions of detention, their state of health and the care received when they fell ill, it is explained in Paris, where the torture denounced by the counsel of the two accused cannot be confirmed.
Stuck between popular demands for justice, the desire not to appear at the front of court files and the need to preserve an image of respectability, the military would “not know what to do with them,” confides a family member. Bongo, for whom “a fair trial is impossible because there is no paper signed by them that can be used as proof. »
In this case, “there was never respect for the presumption of innocence,” maintains Mr. Zimeray. Even before a trial takes place, his clients have already returned under duress the majority of their assets and property and, not clinging to power, say they are ready to turn the page – not to say “erase the slate”. A source close to the presidency considers that politically, “Oligui would have every interest in playing the grand lords by giving them the means to flee the country and live without making waves for the rest of their lives.”
