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Guinea-Bissau election update:Former intelligence boss assassinated
A presidential election that was supposed to stabilize Guinea-Bissau was marred by a military assassination just hours after polls closed Sunday.
Joao Biague, the director general of the judicial police, confirmed the death of Samba Diallo, the former head of military intelligence. Biague told the private radio station Pindjiguiti FM late Sunday that the police were investigating Diallo’s death and will bring those responsible to justice.
Few details were available on Monday, but neighbor Germano Da Silva who lives around 30 yards from Diallo’s home said that he saw a police car with two soldiers and one person dressed as a civilian pull into the residential area. They knocked on Diallo’s door and were told that the ex-intelligence chief had gone to a nearby boutique to buy a packet of cigarettes, said Da Silva, who saw the gunmen arrive and then pieced together the rest from speaking to the family and to other witnesses.
Da Silva said that the man dressed as a civilian then went to the boutique, where he found Diallo. He shot him three times, before jumping back in the car and speeding away.
It was unclear if the assassination is linked to Sunday’s presidential election, an emergency ballot that was called after the death on January 9 of the country’s former leader, Malam Bacai Sanha, a 64-year-old diabetic who died in France after multiple hospitalizations abroad.
Sanha came to power in another emergency election in 2009, organized after the country’s longtime ruler Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira was assassinated inside his home.
Head of the election commission Desejado Lima Da Costa held a press conference Monday, hours after meeting with the head of the armed forces, Lt. Gen. Antonio Indjai. Da Costa told reporters that the army chief had given him his assurances that the military will continue to secure the vote until the end of the electoral process.
