Call for 23 soldiers detained in Lesotho on mutiny charges to be released
THE Southern African Litigation Centre (Salc) and Amnesty International on Friday called for the release of 23 soldiers detained in Lesotho since May last year, "on charges of mutiny or failure to suppress a mutiny".The human rights groups also want the court martials against the 23 — who "are accused of plotting to kill senior members of the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF)" — dropped and for them to be granted amnesty from criminal prosecution‚The mutiny‚ which followed election violence‚ led to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa intervening on behalf to the Southern African Development Community (Sadc).A Salc statement said a "Sadc commission of inquiry report found that there were divisions within the LDF and anomalies relating to the charges of mutiny".That report — which was formally tabled in the Lesotho Parliament on Monday — "found that there was no conclusive evidence of a mutiny plot and that some officers had been tortured into implicating other officers in the alleged plot"‚ S...
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