Members of Guinea's civil society expressed outrage Thursday over the recent promotion of a police colonel whose acquittal of involvement in a notorious massacre is under appeal.
Military police officer Bienvenu Lamah was acquitted in late July over his alleged role in a brutal crackdown on a political rally in 2009 where hundreds were killed, tortured or raped.
He was subsequently appointed one week later on August 3 as brigadier general in the national gendarmerie by a decree from President Mamady Doumbouya.
The promotion comes while civil parties have appealed the decision, the International Federation for Human Rights, which brings together some 200 member organisations, said in a statement Thursday.
"Given the charges that still stand against Bienvenu Lamah, since we have appealed the ruling acquitting him, his promotion to the rank of brigadier general of the Guinean national gendarmerie is an affront to the civil parties," said Drissa Traore, FIDH secretary-general and a lawyer for the civil parties.
The move, he said, "amounts to normalising the violence" that occurred during the massacre.
On September 28, 2009, at least 156 people were killed by gunfire, knives, machetes or bayonets at an opposition rally at a stadium in the Conakry suburbs, according to a UN-mandated international commission of inquiry.
Hundreds more were wounded, at least 109 women were raped and abuses continued for several days against women who were held captive, while detainees were tortured.
At the time of the massacre, Lamah was stationed at the Kaleyah military training centre, which reportedly served as the starting point for "recruits in training" involved in the violations at the stadium, FIDH said.
"Doumbouya has chosen to reward, even before the judicial process has concluded, a person accused of acts classified as crimes against humanity," said Alpha Amadou DS Bah, president of the Guinean Organisation for the Defence of Human and Civil Rights (OGDH).
On July 27, a court in Conakry ordered the immediate release of Lamah, who had been in custody since November 2022, acquitting him of charges which included "complicity in abuse of authority, murder, abduction and unlawful detention".
Guinea's ex-dictator Moussa Dadis Camara was found guilty in 2024 of crimes against humanity in the massacre and sentenced to 20 years behind bars, only to be pardoned in March 2025 by Doumbouya.
Doumbouya, who seized power in a September 2021 coup, was elected president for a seven-year term in December having faced no serious opponent.
