Paris has demanded that Mali release Yann Vezilier, saying he is entitled to diplomatic immunity under international law
France has confirmed that a French citizen arrested in Mali over a reported coup plot is an employee of its embassy in Bamako, but denied claims of his involvement in an alleged attempt to overthrow the West African country’s military government.
The Malian government announced last week that it had detained Yann Vezilier, accusing him of acting on behalf of French intelligence to mobilize political leaders, civil society figures, and military officers for “criminal activities aimed at destabilizing” the country.
On Saturday, the French Foreign Ministry dismissed the charges against Vezilier as “baseless,” according to a statement cited by AFP. “A dialogue is underway [with the Malian authorities] in order to dispel any misunderstanding and obtain the immediate release of this member of the French embassy in Bamako,” it added.
Relations between Bamako and Paris have deteriorated in recent years amid allegations that France is sponsoring terrorism in an attempt to undermine military regimes in the Sahel. The transitional governments of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have cut defense ties with their former colonial metropole and turned to new alliances, including with Russia, to confront a protracted jihadist insurgency that they claim French troops failed to quell despite a decade-long counterterrorism mission.
On Thursday, Mali’s Security Minister Daoud Aly Mohammedine said an investigation was under way to identify “possible accomplices” in “subversive acts” against Bamako involving “foreign states,” after the arrest of Vezilier and dozens of Malian soldiers.
The French Foreign Ministry said the detained national is protected under the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, which grants diplomats immunity from arrest by the host country, and called for his release.
However, Fousseynou Ouattara, vice president of the defense committee of Mali’s National Transitional Council, told the African Initiative news agency that the provisions on diplomatic immunity did not apply to Vezilier because he was “caught in the act.”
He said the diplomat had spent a year in Bamako as second secretary at the French Embassy, forging ties with senior military and political figures whom he “ideologically indoctrinated.”
