Ivory Coast: Death of Alino Faso, prosecutor breaks silence, to further confuse matters?
In a televised performance worthy of a bad crime movie, the Prosecutor of the Republic at the Court of First Instance of Abidjan, Oumar Braman Koné, embarked this Sunday on a perilous exercise: speaking without saying anything, while denying what everyone suspects.
On camera, the magistrate attempted to defuse the growing diplomatic crisis between Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso following the suspicious death of Burkinabe activist Alain Christophe Traoré, known as Alino Faso, who died on July 24 in detention. But instead of shedding light on a case that reeks of a state scandal, he chose to cast an even thicker institutional fog over the matter.
“He was being prosecuted for conspiracy against state authority, espionage…,” declared the prosecutor, with a detached tone that almost made one forget that a man had died—inside a gendarmerie and under circumstances no one seems willing to clarify. The words were heavy with insinuations yet empty of evidence, as if mere accusation could silence the questions.
And what about his surreal description of Alino’s “detention conditions”? Listening to him, one might believe the activist was enjoying a VIP house arrest, even as rumors point to violence, deprivation, psychological pressure, and torture sessions. The rhetoric was too well-oiled not to reek of institutional denial.
Burkina Faso, which denounces a “heinous assassination,” is still waiting for concrete explanations. On the Ivorian side, however, opacity seems to prevail over transparency. This intervention, meant to reassure, looked more like a masked confession—a sign of a government losing its grip on a truth it no longer controls.
Rather than providing answers, the prosecutor delivered a masterclass in diversion, turning a judicial platform into a theater of the absurd. And maybe, instead of staging a show, it’s time to launch a real independent investigation.
