A court in Gabon has sentenced the former first lady and the son of deposed President Ali Bongo to 20 years in jail following a two-day trial.
On Tuesday night, Sylvia Bongo and Noureddin Bongo were found guilty of embezzlement and corruption after a trial that began a day earlier in their absence.
They were both fined 100m CFA francs ($177,000; £135,000), with Noureddin ordered to pay an extra 1.2tn CFA francs ($2.1; £1.6bn) for financial damages suffered by the Gabonese state.
They were accused of exploiting Ali Bongo’s condition after he suffered a stroke in 2018 to run Gabon for their own personal profit. They denied the charges ahead of their trial, describing it as “a legal farce.”
Ali Bongo was ousted in an August 2023 coup led by Brice Oligui Nguema, who has since shed his military uniform and was elected president earlier this year.
Following the military takeover, Bongo’s wife and son were detained in Gabon for 20 months before being released in May and permitted to leave the country for London on medical grounds.
The former president is not facing prosecution and was also released from house arrest where he had reportedly remained, although Gabonese authorities said he was free to move about as he wished.
Gabonese state prosecutor Eddy Minang on Monday told the court that they were “surprised” not to see the former first lady and her son in court as the trial began.
Noureddin described the conviction as a “rubber-stamping exercise”, saying it had been “predetermined in [Oligui Nguema’s office] a long time ago”.
He said it was “disappointing that a finding of guilt has been made without any semblance of evidence”.
Their conviction comes as a surprise for the unusual swift handling of the case, which they have alleged to be politically motivated. The trial had been expected to last until Friday.
The trial of the other accused will continue, local reporters have told the BBC. Nine co-accused, former allies of the Bongos, were present in court at the start of the trial, according to reports.
SOURCE: BBC NEWS
