On Monday, proceedings in a trial for a 2009 massacre in Guinea were adjourned for a week after former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara declared he was too ill to testify.
Survivors of the massacre and relatives of the dead had been waiting for Camara to take the stand.
However, the former military ruler, who arrived into the pub wearing civilian clothing and walking with difficulty, stated that he was ill.
“With all the respect that I have for your distinguished tribunal, I have already informed the director of the penitentiary, the head doctor of the penitentiary, (that) I have been ill for some time,” Camara said.
He said he felt “completely weak from malaria I caught”.
“I’m not above the law but quite sincerely I absolutely think that I can’t (testify) right now.”
Camara and ten other former military and government officials are charged with the murder of 156 civilians and the rape of at least 109 women by pro-junta forces at a political rally in a Conakry stadium in September 2009.
They face charges ranging from murder to sexual assault, kidnapping, arson, and looting. Camara is charged with “personal criminal culpability and command responsibility.”
Chief Judge Ibrahima Sory Tounkara stated, “The court cannot force you to say or do something you do not want to say or do… The court accepts your statement that you are unable to provide a witness.”
“You have a week, Mr. Camara,” he said, adjourning the trial until December 12.
The 58-year-old former strongman was detained on September 27, a day before the long-awaited trial began in a purpose-built court in the capital Conakry.
Camara, at the time an unknown captain in the army, seized power in December 2008 shortly after the death of Guinea’s second post-independence president, General Lansana Conte, who had ruled for 24 years.
Camara was shot in the head during an attempted assassination in December 2009 and traveled to Morocco for medical care.
He fled to Burkina Faso, where he was accused by Guinean magistrates in July 2015 for his suspected role in the stadium massacre.
