Mali orders Ivory Coast soldiers jailed 20 years for ‘conspiracy against government’

The junta calls them mercenaries, but Ivory Coast and the United Nations say the troops were flown in as routine backup security for the UN peacekeeping mission

The prison sentence comes ahead of a January 1 deadline set by West African leaders for Mali to release the soldiers or face sanctions

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Journalists and military personnel wait outside the Court of Appeal in Bamako, as the trial of the 46 Ivorian soldiers arrested in Mali takes place on Friday. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:09am, 31 Dec 2022Updated: 5:23am, 31 Dec 2022

A court in Mali has sentenced 46 Ivorian troops whose detention in Mali sparked a diplomatic row between the two countries to 20 years in prison, the public prosecutor said on Friday.

Three women soldiers among the original group detained in July, and who were freed in early September, were sentenced to death in absentia.

The trial of the 46 Ivorian troops had wrapped up earlier on Friday after opening in the capital Bamako on Thursday. The court proceedings came in the run-up to a January 1 deadline set by West African leaders for Mali to release the soldiers or face sanctions.

The Ivorians were found guilty of an “attack and conspiracy against the government” and seeking to undermine state security, public prosecutor Ladji Sara said in a statement.

A man rides a motorbike past the Court of Appeal in Bamako, where the trial of the 46 Ivorian soldiers arrested in Mali concluded on Friday. Photo: AFP

The court proceedings were held behind closed doors and under heavy security, an Agence France-Presse journalist noted.

Forty-nine troops from Ivory Coast were detained after they arrived at Bamako airport on July 10. Three of them, all women, were later freed.