Interpol on Monday issued an international arrest warrant for Karim Keita, one of the sons of former Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, as part of an investigation into the disappearance of an investigative journalist in 2016, a Malian judicial source and Interpol in Mali said.
The Interpol “red notice” was issued at the request of an examining magistrate of the high court of commune IV of Bamako, the capital, said a source close to the investigation speaking on condition of anonymity. The information was confirmed by an official from the Interpol representative office in Mali, who also requested anonymity.
A Malian journalist in his fifties, Birama Touré, who worked for the Bamako weekly Le Sphinx until a few months before his disappearance, has not been seen since January 29, 2016, according to his family and the publication’s director, Adama Dramé. The latter say they fear he was abducted, tortured and killed after several months in detention. The director of Le Sphinx had claimed in 2018 that his ex-reporter had previously approached Karim Keïta about a file he presented as compromising for the president’s son.
Believing that he had been defamed by the Sphinx, Karim Keïta, who has always firmly denied any involvement in the disappearance of the reporter, had filed a complaint in 2019 for defamation against the director of the magazine and against a journalist from a private radio station in Bamako who had opened its airwaves. However, this complaint was deemed inadmissible for formal reasons by the Malian justice system. The director of Le Sphinx, fearing for his safety, took refuge in France.
Considered by many Malians as the personification of the corruption of the regime of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Karim Keïta had escaped arrest after the seizure of power by officers led by Colonel Assimi Goïta on 18 August 2020. He reappeared a few days later in Côte d’Ivoire.