He was the most wanted man in Guinea. After ten months on the run, Colonel Claude Pivi, a figure in the junta that ruled his country between 2008 and 2010 and sentenced to life imprisonment during the trial for the massacre of 28 September 2009, was arrested on Tuesday 17 September in Liberia. The arrest took place in a town on the border with Guinea and the first images of him circulating on social networks, showing him in yellow flip-flops and Capri trousers in the back of a van and then on a police couch, undermine the legend of the soldier who, at the height of his omnipotence, appeared in public covered in fetishes and terrorised all of Conakry.
The conditions of his detention are not yet known but, for Asmaou Diallo, president of Avipa, the association of victims, parents and friends of September 28, the end of this career “It is a great day, a first victory for all his victims”. Now he hopes that Moussa Dadis Camara’s former presidential security minister can be “extradited as soon as possible to Conakry to serve the sentence for which he was convicted in absentia at first instance”.
On July 31, the main perpetrators of the massacre that left 156 dead and hundreds wounded, accompanied by the rape of 109 women, according to the report of a United Nations commission of inquiry, were sentenced to heavy sentences. All of them attended the trial except Claude Pivi, who was nowhere to be seen despite the 500 million Guinean francs (about 50,000 euros) promised by the Guinean authorities for his capture.
“It was an extreme danger that he ran in naturestresses Souleymane Bah, president of the Guinean Organisation for Human Rights. Victims in the trial for the massacre of September 28, 2009 testified about the abuses they suffered, of the numerous abuses that he had ordered but also in which he participated. Let us not be mistaken, this man was a criminal, a murderer, a rapist of women. »
a certain influence within from the army
Claude Pivi turned handsome on November 4, 2023, during a spectacular escape from Conakry prison. At the head of the commando that came to get him out of his cell was one of his sons, Verny, who is still impossible to locate, according to a Guinean officer. Two other important figures of the junta who had repressed with extreme violence those who had risen up to reject the military’s will to retain power were later released: their leader Moussa Dadis Camara and the former gendarme Moussa Tiegboro Camara.
They were all quickly captured and returned to the defendants’ box, but this escape shook the country and turned the current coup regime of Mamadi Doumbouya into a fever pitch. In fact, Claude Pivi retains a certain influence within the of the Guinean army, although Mamadi Doumbouya has worked since his coup to remove from command posts, in particular from the autonomous battalion of airborne troops, alleged relatives of Claude Pivi, mainly from forest Guinea.
“It is no coincidence that Pivi was arrested in Liberia, adjacent to Forest Guinea, says Vincent Foucher, of the CNRS. Pivi was one of the pillars of the 2008 junta. He had enough influence within the army to organize his escape. He was one of those officers who had important clienteles within the Guinean army. He brought a lot of “little guys”continues the researcher.
one of these “little”The man, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, recalls the time when “Coplan”, one of his nicknames, headed the presidential security ministry under Moussa Dadis Camara and then advised President Alpha Condé.
“This man had an extraordinary aura. This karate champion, who had fought during the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, was still very respected. If he is extradited to Conakry, I fear he will die in prison.”he said, referring to former chief of staff Sadiba Coulibaly, who was previously very close to Mamadi Doumbouya, and whose circumstances of death in custody remain unexplained. “He must answer for his actionsadds the Guinean officialbut before the International Criminal Court where at least their safety will be guaranteed. »
The trial on September 28 was hailed as the first “historical » by many Guineans and by the main Western chancelleries who readily cooperate with the junta now in power. But it is also seen, recalls Vincent Foucher, as a “means to legitimize the repressive policy of Mamadi Doumbouya” AND “a way to delay the transition.”
