Niger’s deposed president goes to court First round of negotiations: Azerbaijan wants to take power in Nagorno-Karabakh

Niger’s deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, is taking the coup plotters to court. Bazoum, his wife and his son have filed a lawsuit in the ECOWAS Court of Justice for deprivation of liberty and violation of the constitution.

Bazoum’s lawyer Mohamed Seydou Diagne told the German news agency in Dakar on Thursday. The three have been held in the presidential palace in Niamey, the capital of Niger, since the July 26 coup. The head of the presidential guard, Abdourahamane Tiani, along with other military officers, has taken power and declared himself interim president.

According to the lawyer, in response to the lawsuit, the junta ordered Bazoum and his family to receive fresh food and visits from their doctor only once a week instead of every day. There was global concern for the presidential family as they were left without power, food supplies or access to medical care after the coup. In mid-August, the junta allowed a doctor to visit the president for the first time, who now came every day. The family still has no electricity.

ECOWAS had threatened military intervention if democratically elected President Bazoum was not reinstated and constitutional order was restored. However, this has not happened to date. Niger, a Sahel country with about 26 million inhabitants and one of the poorest populations in the world, was previously a key strategic partner of the US and European countries in the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara. Several neighboring states are also ruled by the military after coups.

The Nigerian Judicial Authority published a letter from the court in neighboring Nigeria, ordering the state to respond within a month to the complaint received on Monday.

(hah/sda/apa/dpa)