Former Guinea-Bissau Economy and Finance Minister Suleimane Seidi was released on October 7, after five days of detention at the Second Police Station in Bissau, according to his family. “Suleimane is already at home,” a family member confirmed to the media.
Seidi had been arrested last Wednesday while at a restaurant in Bissau and was later escorted home by the same police who detained him. Earlier in the day, the President of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, told the media that he had ordered the release of former Finance Minister Suleimane Seidi, as he had been detained on an outdated basis.
His relatives and the Guinean Human Rights League, which had called for his immediate release, described his arrest as a kidnapping by the authorities. One of Seidi’s defense lawyers expressed frustration, stating that neither the arrest nor the release followed proper legal procedures. “It was all extra-procedural, from his arrest to his release,” the lawyer said, requesting anonymity.
Seidi, leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which heads the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition that won the most recent legislative elections, was first arrested in December 2023. At the time, he was accused, alongside then-Secretary of State for the Treasury António Monteiro, of alleged corruption over a state debt payment of around $9 million to a group of businessmen.