(RSF/IFEX) – On 10 March 2005, RSF urged both the Ivorian and French authorities to cooperate with a French investigating judge’s request for Ivorian citizen Michel Legré to be transferred to France for two months for questioning. Legré is the primary suspect in the April 2004 disappearance of journalist Guy-André Kieffer in Abidjan. Kieffer has […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 10 March 2005, RSF urged both the Ivorian and French authorities to cooperate with a French investigating judge’s request for Ivorian citizen Michel Legré to be transferred to France for two months for questioning. Legré is the primary suspect in the April 2004 disappearance of journalist Guy-André Kieffer in Abidjan. Kieffer has dual French and Canadian citizenship.
“Legré’s transfer to France offers the only hope of finding out the truth in this case,” the organisation said. “It is essential that the main suspect be handed over to the French judicial authorities for questioning by Judge Patrick Ramaël and, for that to happen, all obstacles must be removed.”
RSF called on the French Foreign Ministry to support the judge’s initiative, instead of obstructing it.
“The request for Legré’s temporary transfer was submitted by Judge Ramaël on 13 December. However, when the judge visited Côte d’Ivoire from 12 to 26 February, it still had not been received by the Ivorian authorities. [The request] has been blocked by the French Foreign Ministry, whose job it is to forward it. This is unacceptable,” RSF said. It is still not too late, but Paris must now do everything possible to ensure that Legré can be questioned in France,” the organisation noted.
Noting that events beyond Ramaël’s control held up his work and forced him to delay his trip to Abidjan, the organisation added, “It would be incomprehensible if the French Foreign Ministry did not now demonstrate anew its commitment to solve this case.”
Ramaël and fellow investigating judge Emmanuelle Ducos were not able to interrogate Legré satisfactorily during their stay in Abidjan. Legré’s lawyers were clearly obstructive, telling their client not to answer essential questions and preventing him from talking freely.
Legré, who is the brother-in-law of President Laurent Gbagbo’s wife, is said to be the last person to have seen Kieffer before he went missing. On 21 October, Ramaël charged him with “abducting and holding” the journalist. Legré is currently being held in an Abidjan detention centre.
Kieffer, 54, married and the father of two children, was last seen around 1:00 p.m. (local time) on 16 April in an Abidjan shopping centre. He specialised in writing about commodities and business, working for the French business daily “La Tribune” from 1984 to early 2002. He subsequently moved to Abidjan and freelanced for “La Lettre du Continent” and several Ivorian newspapers.
