Prosecutor demands death penalty for 17 coup suspects

The prosecutor in a mass trial of 195 Mauritanian coup suspects has demanded the death penalty for 17 people accused of masterminding three failed attempts to topple President Maaouiya Ould Taya in 2003 and 2004. Those facing possible execution include Major Saleh Ould Hanenna and Captain Abderahmane Ould Mini, who were captured in September after more than a year on the run, and nine people who are being tried in their absence. State prosecutor Sidi Mohamed Ould Molaye also called for 49 sentences of life imprisonment with hard labour and 65 jail terms of between 10 and 20 years as he set out his demands for harsh punishment on Wednesday. The defendants listened quietly to his seven-hour speech of indictment, but wails and screams burst out from relatives attending the trial at a remote police barracks in the desert 50 km east of the capital Nouakchott. A few women had to be carried out of court by security guards. Only 176 of the defendants have appeared in court during the six-week-old trial at the heavily guarded barracks. A further 19 are being tried in their absence All are accused of taking part in a bloody uprising against Ould Taya in June 2003 and two further coup plots in August and September last year which were nipped in the bud by the security forces. So far Ould Hanenna and Ould Mini are the only defendants to have confessed in court that they were actively conspiring to overthrow the president. Nine of the 17 facing people facing a possible death sentence are being tried in their absence. They include Sidi Mohamed Mustapha Ould Limam Chavi, an adviser of President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso who is accused of buying arms for the conspirators and helping them to flee justice. The Mauritanian government has repeatedly accused Burkina Faso and its close ally Libya of arming and financing the insurgents. During their testimony in court, Ould Hanenna and Ould Mini complained of corruption, tribalism, poor pay and mismanagement in the army, and discrimination against black Africans. The government of Mauritania, which straddles black and Arab Africa, is dominated by fair-skinned Bidan Moors who have close historical and cultural ties with Morocco. Slavery remained legal in the country until 1980. Ould Taya, a former army colonel, seized power in a 1984 coup, but diplomats and Mauritanian political analysts believe he has alienated a large section of the armed forces by favouring his kinsmen from the northwest and largely excluding southerners in the officer corps from top positions in the armed forces and government. Critics of the president, who is a staunch ally of the United States and France, say he is simply using allegations of coup plots supported by foreign powers as a pretext to clamp down on the opposition. Although the state prosecutor has called for 17 death sentences, the human rights group Amnesty International says no executions have taken place in Mauritania since 1987. Several civilian opposition leaders have been arraigned alongside dissident military officers in the mass trial. These included former president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah, who was overthrown by Ould Taya in 1984. He returned to challenge him at the ballot box in the November 2003 presidential election. The state prosecutor accused Ould Haidallah and another opposition presidential candidate, Ahmed Ould Daddah, of funding the insurgents and demanded that both be sentenced to five years in jail. Ould Haidallah was officially declared runner-up in the presidential election. He briefly succeeded in uniting Mauritania's disparate opposition forces, but was arrested immediately after the poll and sentenced to a five-year suspended jail sentence for plotting a coup against Ould Taya in December 2003. He was subsequently re-arrested. Defence lawyers protested against the harsh sentences demanded by government. “The prosecution didn’t even prove its case,” said Brahim Ould Ebetty. More than 50 defence lawyers are scheduled to address the court when the trial resumes on Monday.