Guinea-Bissau president blames ‘failed coup’ on 3 drug traffickers
Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embaló has accused three drug traffickers of culpability in the failed February 1 coup, adding that they were arrested following the event.
Embaló said the men are former navy chief Amério Bubo Na Tchuto and ex-officers Mr Tchamy Yala and Papis Djemé.
“I am not saying that politicians are behind this [failed coup attempt], but the hand that carries the weapons is from people linked to the big drug cartels,” he said, noting that the accused men had a brush with US law enforcement over drug trafficking.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrested the three men over drug trafficking but they have since returned to the West Africa country.
In April 2013, Na Tchuto was lured into a trap by DEA agents, who arrested him on the high seas in international waters, making his extradition merely a formality.
Na Tchuto provided US authorities with important information and names of key players in the trade. He was consequently released from prison soon after his court conviction so that he could return to Guinea-Bissau.
Yala and Djemé were sentenced in 2014, also in New York, to five and six and a half years in prison respectively.
Drug trafficking, corruption and related crimes are serious hurdles on Guinea-Bissau’s path to democracy, good governance, and legitimate free market development, the US Department of State says.
Last year, that department said it was offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Guinea-Bissau’s former head of armed forces Antonio Indjai.
Indjai has been the subject of a United Nations travel ban since May 2012, as a result of his participation in an April 2012 coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau.
He was accused of leading a criminal organisation that was actively involved in drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau and the region for many years, even while he served as head of the armed forces.
Indjai was seen as one of the most powerful destabilising figures in Guinea-Bissau, operating freely throughout West Africa, using illegal proceeds to corrupt and destabilise other foreign governments and undermine the rule of law, US officials said.
