Guinea-Bissau’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Suleimane Seidi, and Secretary of State for Finance, António Monteiro, were returned to prison on Friday after being released by National Guard soldiers on Thursday evening.
A military source told Lusa that the two leaders were in the National Guard barracks, in the Luanda district, on the outskirts of Bissau, from where they were transferred again “to the cells of the judicial police” in the Reno district.
Suleimane Seidi and Antonio Monteiro were placed in preventive detention on Thursday after six hours of interrogation at the Public Prosecutor’s Office and shortly later taken from their cell by the National Guard.
This morning around 1 a.m., violent shootings broke out in Bissau, especially next to the National Guard barracks, in the Luanda district.
Military sources told Lusa that these were clashes between soldiers from that company and elements of the Presidency of the Republic Battalion.
The same sources stated that military police had been sent to the scene of the fighting and arrested the commander of the National Guard, Colonel Vítor Tchongo, and “a few other elements” of that company around 8:30 this morning. .
Tchongo and the other National Guard prisoners were taken to cells at the Armed Forces General Staff headquarters in Amura, central Bissau.
Gunfire stopped being heard in Guinea-Bissau’s capital around 9 a.m., which started around 1:20 a.m. Friday, lasted for a few minutes and was heard again shortly after midnight.
Both times, the shots echoed through the city of Bissau and came from the area around the barracks in the Luanda district and other National Guard installations, according to reports reaching Lusa.
The area of the neighborhoods closest to the shooting, such as Santa Luzia, Luanda and Empantcha, was without movement of vehicles and people in the early morning hours. Some businesses closed in Guinea-Bissau’s capital, but in other parts of the city the population maintained normal routines, even to the sound of gunfire.
The shots took place following the tensions experienced on Thursday evening, after the Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered the preventive arrest of the Minister of Finance, Sulemaine Seide, and the Secretary of State for Finance, António Monteiro.
The government officials are being investigated as part of a payment of six billion CFA francs (about $10 million) to 11 businessmen through credit to a commercial bank in Bissau.
Source: DN
