A court in Madagascar has convicted two French citizens of having plotted a failed coup against President Andry Rajoelina and sentenced them to 10 years and 20 years of forced labor.<\/p>\n
At the end of a 10–<\/span>day trial in Antananarivo, the capital, Paul Rafanoharana was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday. Frenchman Philippe Fran\u00e7ois was given a 10–<\/span>year prison sentence.<\/p>\n The two Frenchmen were arrested in July and accused, along with 18 other defendants, of endangering state security, criminal association and conspiracy to assassinate the president.<\/p>\n The two belonged to \u201ca criminal organization\u201d that was seeking to \u201ccarry out an attack against President Rajoelina\u201d as shown by \u201cemails, arms and money, seized\u201d<\/span>by authorities, said state prosecutor Ars\u00e8ne Rabe. The plot was called \u201cApollo 21,\u201d said the prosecution.<\/p>\n The two men pleaded not guilty and their defense has denounced the trial and unfair with \u201cnumerous procedural flaws.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are truly appalled by this verdict,\u201d said Arlette Rafanomadio, one of Rafanoharana\u2019s lawyers who was reached by telephone.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did not expect such a heavy sentence because there is no hard evidence to convict our client,\u201d<\/span> she said. \u201c<\/span>We are going to appeal and we are studying possible applications to international bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n Rafanoharana, a former officer of the French gendarmerie and a graduate of the Saint–<\/span>Cyr military school, was briefly an adviser to Rajoelina in 2011.<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois, also a graduate of Saint–<\/span>Cyr and a retired colonel of the French army, had worked in Chad before arriving in Madagascar almost two years ago. Francois and Rafanoharana were partners in an investment company, Tsarafirst, which bought and sold gold.<\/p>\n During the trial, Rafanoharana did not deny that he imagined a way to \u201cneutralize\u201d the president\u2019<\/span>s entourage, but he denied that he plotted to kill the president himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI consider that it is not a crime to have thought of neutralizing the mafia which harms the country and to have wanted to help a president who is a prisoner of various influences,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n Francois denied any involvement in the plot. \u201cI have never been directly or indirectly involved in such a project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Others sentenced include Rafanoharana\u2019<\/span>s wife who was given a five–<\/span>year prison term. Former Madagascar Prime Minister Victor Ramahatra was handed a five–<\/span>year suspended prison sentence. A court in Madagascar has convicted two French citizens of having plotted a failed coup against President Andry Rajoelina and sentenced them to 10 years and 20 years of forced labor. At the end of a 10–day trial in Antananarivo, the capital, Paul Rafanoharana was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday. Frenchman Philippe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":408227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-408226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408228,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408226\/revisions\/408228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSource: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"