#Gardner A military officer and a relative said Tuesday that a colonel believed to be close to the ruling junta in Mali was arrested last week in what authorities presented as an attempted coup.
Colonel Amadou Casta, although believed to be one of the first pustists in 2020, is not a well-known face among officials who took power nearly two years ago.
He is one of some 120 members of the National Transitional Council (CNT), which serves as a parliament during the period that is supposed to precede the return of citizens to the head of state. Mali’s powerful colonel Asimi Goeta had a hand in the appointment of members of the CNT.
Colonel Kesta is known to be close to Colonel Malik Diav, the chairman of the CNT, who is considered one of the most powerful men in the junta.
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,Since 12th, we have not received any further news from Colonel Amadou Keita. two of his accomplices told us he had been arrested,A close relative told AFP on condition of anonymity.
This relative did not comment on the reasons for his disappearance. But according to the Junta, Mali was the scene of a shadowy coup attempt on the night of May 11 to 12.
The government set up by the military said Monday evening that it had foiled an effort that night led by officers and non-commissioned officers and supported by an unspecified western state.
The statement, read on state television, gave almost no details of what might have happened and no evidence of the genuineness of the information. He reported the arrest without further information.
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One military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has so far spoken of a dozen arrests.
Mali, plunged into deep security and political crises since the outbreak of independence and jihadist insurgency in the north in 2012, was the scene of two coups led by the same group of colonels in August 2020 and May 2021.
The country is now ruled by a junta that has turned away from France and its allies, and has turned to Russia in an effort to stem the spread of jihadism in the center and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. ,