Arrested in May 2021 in Bangui in possession of weapons of war, Juan Rémy Quignolot denounces an “illegal detention”.
Le Monde with AFP
A Frenchman arrested sixteen months ago in possession of weapons of war in the Central African Republic, where he is accused of spying, began a hunger strike on Sunday, September 11 to denounce his “illegal detention”, said his sister and her lawyer at AFP. Juan Rémy Quignolot, arrested on May 10, 2021 in Bangui, is notably accused of “infringement of the internal security of the State”, “conspiracy” and “espionage”, in a context of persistent tensions between Paris and Bangui.
“He will be tried at the next criminal session in October,” Eric Didier Tambo, attorney general at AFP, at AFP at the Bangui Court of Appeal, without expressing herself in keeping -the legal period of one year. His lawyer, Arlette Sombo Dibélé, denounces a “pre -trial detention” which is akin to a “sequestration”, ensuring that no reasoned order for holding in detention has been notified.
former soldier and guard body
m. Quignolot began a hunger strike “until the end” to “protest against the inertia of his own country, the violation of his rights and the Central African law,” said his sister Caroline on the phone, from France, Quignolot. “He ceases to eat at first, then, in fifteen days, if nothing has changed, he will also stop hydrating,” she added. Neither the government nor the prosecutor, solicited by AFP, responded Sunday afternoon on the effective start of a hunger strike by M. Quignolot.
This one, a former French soldier, had worked punctually for several organizations in the Central African Republic as bodyguard, according to humanitarian sources. Photos of his arrest had been broadcast on social networks, showing his hands tied in the back, an important arsenal at his feet. The government then accused him of having at home “a huge amount of war weapons”.
Paris had then denounced this media coverage as a “manifest instrumentalization” targeting “the presence and action of France”, implicitly accusing Russia, which, since 2018, has challenged its influence in this country among the poorest in the world . The National Assembly having abolished the death penalty in May, Mr. Quignolot risks forced labor in perpetuity.