\n Gabon court sentences former first lady and president\u2019s son to 20 years in prison\n <\/p>\n
\n\tLIBREVILLE: Gabon\u2019s former first lady and her son were sentenced in absentia by a special criminal court to 20 years in prison following a two-day trial in Libreville.
\n\tSylvia Bongo and Noureddin Bongo Valentin were convicted of concealment and embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, criminal association and forgery.
\n\tThe court sentenced the duo late Tuesday, according to a judgment, and also issued an arrest warrant for them. They were ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages for \u201ccrimes against the Gabonese state.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tValentin said the verdict had long been \u201cpredetermined\u201d under the office of President Oligui Nguema and called the trial a \u201csimple formality.\u201d
\n\tSylvia Bongo and Noureddin Bongo Valentin were influential during former president Ali Bongo\u2019s 14 years in power of the central African country. Ali Bongo was ousted in a coup in 2023 after winning a disputed election that the military and opposition said was marred by fraud. The coup put an end to the Bongo dynasty\u2019s 56 years in power. Ali Bongo\u2019s father, Omar Bongo, ruled for 42 years.
\n\tThe prosecutor accused both defendants of manipulating the former president\u2019s health issues to control state funds.
\n\tValentin, who held the position of coordinator of presidential affairs, was described by witnesses during the trial as the main person giving orders at the presidential palace after his father suffered a stroke in October 2018. Following Ali Bongo\u2019s ouster, both Valentin and his mother were detained for 20 months before being allowed to travel out of the country.
\n\tThe Bongos, who live in London and hold French citizenship, refused to participate in the trial. During the trial, the prosecutor released images of two private jets allegedly procured with laundered money and listed land holdings including a mansion in London and Morocco.
\n\t\u201cThey reigned unchallenged, and tried to pass themselves off as victims of the system they shaped,\u201d said Eddy Minang, prosecutor general at the Libreville Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabon court sentences former first lady and president\u2019s son to 20 years in prison
LIBREVILLE: Gabon\u2019s former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-566371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115539176565665049","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}