Politics Decades in prison after attempted coup in Sierra Leone

A military court in Sierra Leone has sentenced 24 officers for their involvement in an attempted coup last fall. The men received prison sentences of between 50 and 120 years for murder and mutiny, among other things. Two weeks earlier, a civilian court had imposed decades-long prison sentences on eleven other men.

The alleged mastermind, a former security guard of Sierra Leone's former president Ernest Bai Koroma, received a total sentence of 182 years. Koroma, who ruled the West African state from 2007 to 2018 and is also charged with treason, was allowed to leave for Nigeria in January for medical reasons.

In November 2023, gunmen attacked the country's main military barracks in the capital Freetown as well as a high-security prison and freed around 2,000 inmates. A total of 21 people were killed. The government of President Julius Maada Bio spoke of an attempted coup and had around 80 people arrested.

Bio had been re-elected just a few months before the attack despite a severe economic crisis in the coastal state with a population of nine million. He had won the office in 2018 as an opposition candidate against Koroma's successor and had allegations of corruption against Koroma and his allies investigated. West and Central Africa has experienced a dozen attempted or successful coups since 2020.