Prosecutors demand life imprisonment for Guinea ex-dictator Dadis Camara

Guinean prosecutors in a landmark trial over a 2009 massacre demanded on Wednesday that former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara and six other military or government officials at the time be handed life sentences.

The chief prosecutor, Alghassimou Diallo, asked that the sentence be accompanied by a 30-year non-parole period for the seven defendants, one of whom is being tried in absentia and another of whom is on the run.

The prosecutor also demanded that the charges be reclassified as crimes against humanity by murder, assassination, torture, holding people against their will and rape.

On September 28, 2009, and in the days that followed, members of the presidential guard, soldiers, police and militiamen brutally cracked down on an opposition rally at a stadium in the suburbs of the capital Conakry.

At least 156 people were killed, 109 women were raped and hundreds injured, according to a UN-mandated commission of inquiry, in one of the darkest chapters in the West African nation's history.

The prosecutor requested sentences of 15 years' imprisonment for three other defendants, and 14 years for two others.

He rejected mitigating circumstances.

The prosecution criticised Dadis Camara for having done nothing to prevent the actions of the men placed under his responsibility.

"He did nothing to ensure that the meeting was not repressed. On the contrary, he planned it," said a representative from the public prosecutor's office, Elhadj Sidiki Camara.