35 ARRESTS IN MALI OVER FRENCH JOURNALIST MURDERS
Bamako, Mali, 2 Muharram 1435/6 November 2013 (MINA) – At least 35 suspects have been arrested in 48 hours as the hunt intensifies for the killers of two French journalists shot dead in Mali’s.
Ghislaine Dupont, 57, and Claude Verlon, 55, were kidnapped and killed by what French officials after interviewing a spokesman for Tuareg separatists in the flashpoint northeastern town of Kidal on Saturday.
“A few dozen people have been arrested on Malian territory over 48 hours in the course of the investigation related to the murder of the two French journalists,” a source from the Kidal administration told Modern Ghana News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
A member of the Malian security forces confirmed the information, putting the number of people detained at “at least 35”.
News of the arrests came after the journalists arrived back in Paris, with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announcing that 150 French soldiers had been sent to join 200 troops already in Kidal.
He said however that France would stick to plans to withdraw two-thirds of the 3,000 soldiers it has in Mali by the end of January.
The Malian security source said investigators were being helped by prisoners jailed for the kidnapping of Frenchmen Philippe Verdon and Serge Lazarevic, ordered by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
France sent troops to Mali early this year to drive out fighter groups who had seized the country’s vast north after a coup.
Paris has always said the mission would be reduced by two-thirds by early next year as a 12,600-strong UN peacekeeping force takes over.
Some in Mali have voiced concern over the French drawdown amid an increase in violence, as the country’s continued instability was highlighted this week with the deaths of the RFI journalists.
A French military patrol found Dupont and Verlon’s bodies about 12 kilometres (seven miles) east of Kidal, just hours after they were snatched on Saturday, lying by a pick-up truck in which they had been abducted.
The bodies were flown home early Tuesday from Bamako to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, where their coffins, draped in blue cloth, were presented to some 20 relatives and RFI employees during a private ceremony also attended by President Francois Hollande.
Journalists from RFI, a publicly funded radio station with a long history of covering Africa and similar to Britain’s BBC World Service, observed a minute’s silence at the station’s headquarters outside Paris.
The killings have shaken France, which just days ago was celebrating the return of four hostages who had been held for three years after being abducted in Mali’s neighbour Niger.
A French source said seven investigators, including intelligence and police officials, were sent to Mali to assist in the investigation.
The United States on Monday condemned acts of violence against journalists and expressed concern over the security situation in Mali. (T/P09/P04).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
