You can seek medical care abroad – Gabon junta tells Bongo after release
Gabon’s military government freed President Ali Bongo from house arrest, a week after overthrowing him in a bloodless coup.
The deposed president is free to seek medical treatment abroad if he wishes, a junta spokesman said on state television in the capital, Libreville, on Wednesday.
His release comes two days after coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema was sworn in as transitional president.
Bongo, 64, was shown on television meeting United Nations special envoy Abdou Abary.
It was the first time he’s been seen since August 30, when he issued an appeal hours after being placed under house arrest in a video message urging his supporters to “make noise” about the unfolding events in the Central African nation.
The putsch in the former French colony is the ninth in sub-Saharan Africa in the past three years, and follows a coup in Niger last month.
The military takeover drew condemnation from the US, Nigeria, France and the African Union, as it sparked a slump in the nation’s dollar bonds and raised concerns of a spillover of the selloff to other African countries with high political risk.
