'%20id='ico-down'%20stroke='%23000000'%20stroke-width='1.5'%3e%3cg%20transform='translate(1092.250000,%20254.750000)'%3e%3cpolyline%20id='Path-2-Copy-4'%20transform='translate(5.500000,%202.750000)%20scale(1,%20-1)%20rotate(-180.000000)%20translate(-5.500000,%20-2.750000)%20'%20points='0%200%205.5%205.5%2011%200'%3e%3c/polyline%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e){kind=small}
A former top Malian official was briefly detained in Paris after the ruling junta in Bamako filed an international arrest warrant for him, French officials said Tuesday.
Moustapha Ben Barka, previously a key aide to ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was detained on Monday at Charles de Gaulle airport, they said.
He was held overnight before being released on Tuesday on the instructions of French judicial officials, they said, without giving further details.
A judicial source confirmed to AFP “the release of the person concerned after the decision to not pursue the extradition procedure which had been initiated following a request by the Malian authorities”.
Ben Barka is vice president of the West African Development Bank (BOAD) based in Togo.
He was in transit in Paris while on a business trip to South Korea, a source close to the bank said.
He is among half a dozen former officials who have been indicted by the junta and most of whom are abroad.
Keita was forced out in August 2020 by colonels angered at his failure to stem a bloody jihadist insurgency.
Thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in the decade-long security crisis.
Ben Barka was appointed to a range of senior jobs from 2013, firstly as minister and then as effectively chief of staff to the presidency from 2017.
Mali says it has filed arrest warrants for six former Keita officials.
Five are being sought in connection with allegedly corrupt purchases of military equipment or the acquisition of a presidential plane.
They are: Ben Barka; former finance minister and premier Boubou Cisse; ex-defence minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly; Babaly Bah, former head of the state-owned Malian Solidarity Bank (BMS) and now with the BOAD; and Mamadou Igor Diarra, former economy minister and now with Boa Group, part of Morocco’s Bank of Africa BMCE.
Former finance minister Bouare Fily Sissoko and her ex-cabinet director, Mahamadou Camara, have already been charged and imprisoned on similar charges.
An arrest warrant has also been filed for Keita’s son, Karim Keita, a former MP who headed the National Assembly’s defence commission.
He is being sought in connection with the disappearance of a journalist in 2016.
Last year, authorities detained former premier Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga over the allegedly fraudulent purchase of a presidential plane in 2014.
Maiga died in March while in custody, despite warnings from his family that his health was deteriorating.