FREETOWN, Sept. 7– Former Sierra Leonean president Ernest Bai Koroma returned to Freetown, the country’s capital, on Sunday after criminal proceedings against him over an alleged coup attempt were dropped.
Koroma, 72, arrived from Nigeria accompanied by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and was received by Sierra Leone’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mohamed Rahman Swaray.
The Sierra Leonean government dropped the criminal proceedings against the former president in July, ending a legal case that had followed a failed coup attempt in November 2023.
Koroma was charged with treason and placed under house arrest after gunmen attacked a military barracks and two prisons in Freetown, freeing more than 2,200 inmates. At least 21 people, including 14 soldiers, were killed in clashes during the incident.
The government had alleged that the attackers were backed by the former president, an accusation Koroma has denied.
The former president, who ruled Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2018, was later granted bail on medical grounds and permitted to travel to Nigeria in January 2024. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
