A prominent lawyer and leader of Burkina Faso‘s civil society, Guy Herve Kam, was kidnapped just hours after being released from prison, his movement reported on Thursday.
Several individuals deemed hostile to the West African nation’s military government, led by Captain Ibrahim Traore, have been abducted in the capital, Ouagadougou, in recent months.
According to Mouvement Sens, where Kam serves as national coordinator, “National security agents left Guy Herve Kam on open land not far from his home, and immediately another group of armed men took him to an unknown destination” on Wednesday night.
The movement expressed confusion over why Kam was not returned directly to his family and why he was subsequently re-taken by force by a second group lying in wait.
The Burkina Faso Bar Association issued a statement noting that Kam appeared before a military judge on Thursday, who ordered his detention.
“Guy Herve Kam was driven to the Army Detention and Correctional Centre (MACA), where he has been incarcerated since Thursday,” the association stated.
On the same day, a decorated army officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Emmanuel Zoungrana, was abducted just a day after his release following charges of attempting to destabilize the nation.
Zoungrana, 42, had been provisionally allowed to return home on Tuesday by a military tribunal.
Sens blamed Kam’s abduction on the country’s highest authorities, stating, “The authorities’ fury against Kam fully shows that we live in a state where arbitrariness and the power of guns are what we have now for law and legitimacy.”
The movement called for Kam’s immediate release, emphasizing that he had been detained since January and that his release had been ordered by a tribunal in March, a decision upheld on appeal in April.
Kam, a former magistrate, is a well-known figure in Burkina Faso, having defended the family of Captain Thomas Sankara, the country’s president from 1983 until his assassination in a 1987 coup. Burkina Faso has experienced two coups since September 2022, and Traore’s regime recently extended military rule for another five years.
The country has been embroiled in a jihadist insurgency affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group since 2015, resulting in thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions.
Revealed: MP GG Kagombe To Face Murder Over Fatal Shooting Of Rider In Thika Town
