Mali pardons French official sentenced to 20 years in prison

Mali's junta chief granted a presidential pardon Thursday to a French intelligence agent working at the country's embassy, who was accused of being a spy and ordered to serve 20 years in jail.

At the time of the agent's arrest a year ago, Malian authorities accused Yann Vézilier of conspiring against the country, which is ruled by a junta that has severed ties with France.

The Malian government said in a statement posted to Facebook that the clemency "does not call into question the facts established by an adversarial judgment rendered during a trial".

It added that there would be "immediate removal of the individual from national territory".

The agent was sentenced in June in a blow to relations between the West African nation, ruled by a junta since back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, and former colonial ruler France.

Under General Assimi Goïta's leadership, the country has turned its back on the West, especially France, in favour of closer ties with Russia.

The gesture of clemency demonstrated Goïta's "commitment to peace and dialogue, as well as to the ancestral values of forgiveness, hospitality and magnanimity that characterise our culture", the statement said.

The French agent was detained last August 13 in the company of several Malian officers, who were allegedly plotting a coup to overthrow the military junta.

France insists that the charges against the official were without merit.

In the days that followed the agent's arrest, France suspended counter-terrorism cooperation with Mali and ordered two Malian diplomats to leave French territory.

The Malian officers arrested with the French official have not yet stood trial. They are accused of establishing an espionage and conspiracy network aimed at destabilising Mali's government in order to stage a coup.

Impoverished Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fuelled notably by violence from groups affiliated with al Qaeda and the Islamic State jihadist group, as well as local criminal gangs.

It has seen a spate of attacks since April by a coalition of Tuareg separatists and jihadists from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

Mali's ⁠army also said Thursday that 82 of its soldiers who had been held prisoner since nationwide attacks in April by al Qaeda linked militants and a rebel group were freed.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)