A court in Sierra Leone has sentenced 11 people guilty of treason and related offences after an attempted coup, with their leader condemned to almost 200 years in prison, a judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.
Several armed men broke into the country’s armoury in November 2023 and freed more than 2,000 inmates from a maximum prison. At least 18 security forces died in the incident. Authorities at the time said they arrested around 80 suspects, and a dozen were charged in January, including former president Ernest Bai Koroma, later granted bail on medical grounds.
The alleged coup leader, Amadu Koita Makalo, was sentenced Monday to 182 years in prison on charges of treason, murder and shooting with intent to kill.
Makalo was a former bodyguard of Koroma and has been a vocal critic of the current President Julius Maada Bio on social media. The other 10 were also found guilty of treason and murder and received extended prison sentences ranging from 30 to 112 years.
Koroma remains an influential figure within his political party, and many of those arrested in connection to the attack were former associates of the ex-president, Information Minister Chernor Bah told pressmen.
Since Bio’s re-election last year, there has been heightened opposition claiming it was rigged in his favour. Two months after he was re-elected, police said they arrested several people, including senior military officers planning to use protests “to undermine peace.”