Sierra Leone: 12 Charged For Failed November Coup

At least a dozen people have been charged with treason relating to a coup attempt last year.

In late November 2023, a group of militants targeted several key points in the country’s capital of Freetown, resulting in a national curfew being imposed. During this time, President Julius Maada Bio announced that security forces had made progress in combating and tracking down the armed attackers.

On Tuesday, 2 January, 12 people, including a former soldier and bodyguard of former President Ernest Bai Koroma, were charged with “treason, misprision of treason, harbouring, aiding, and abetting the enemy”, according to a statement released by the Information Ministry.

Additional accused are expected to see the inside of a Freetown courtroom in the upcoming weeks, most of them part of Koroma’s former security detail. The former statesman lambasted the attempted overthrow of the government shortly after it happened; he underwent questioning as part of the subsequent police investigation.

Authorities claim that 21 people lost their lives during the chaos of the coup attempt, before armed forces regained control of the situation.

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