BAMAKO: A Malian court on Wednesday threw out a defamation case brought by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s lawmaker son against two journalists he accuses of implicating him in the disappearance of an investigative reporter, lawyers said.
Reporter Birama Toure, who had worked for the weekly Sphinx, has not been seen since January 29, 2016, according to his family and Adama Drame, the director of the publication.
They fear he was picked up by security services and killed after several months’ detention.
Drame said in 2018 that his former reporter had approached the president’s son, Karim Keita, about his private life and that members of Keita’s entourage — fearing that the journalist might try to blackmail him — kidnapped, tortured and murdered him.
Believing that he had been libelled by Sphinx, Karim Keita, who has always strenuously denied any involvement in Toure’s disappearance, lodged a defamation case in June against Drame and a journalist with a private radio station in the capital Bamako.
However, a court in Bamako ruled that the case was inadmissable for procedural reasons, one of the journalists’ lawyers, Alassane Diop, told AFP.
“We are astonished. The court has not got to the bottom of the case, but says that for procedural reasons, because of technicalities raised by the journalists’ lawyers, the case is inadmissable,“ added Khalifa Yaro, a member of Karim Keita’s legal team. — AFP
