Guinea - March 2025

On 28 March, a presidential decree broadcast on national television announced that Guinea’s transitional leader, General Mamadi Doumbouya, had granted a pardon to former president Moussa Dadis Camara on health grounds. Camara’s lawyer confirmed the next day that he had been released from Conakry’s central prison on the evening of 28 March. The pardon came just days after the transitional government pledged to compensate victims of the 2009 Conakry stadium massacre from the national budget, despite a court ruling in July 2024 that Camara and others were personally responsible for reparations. The Guinean Organisation for the Defence of Human and Civil Rights (OGDH) and the Association of Victims, Relatives, and Friends of 28 September 2009 (AVIPA) condemned the decision, questioning the health justification and noting that medical care can be provided in detention. They called it a blow to judicial independence and victims’ pursuit of justice.

Sources: International IDEA, Guinee News, International Federation for Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Punch Nigeria, British Broadcasting Corporation