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Guinea-Bissau president meets prime minister amid coup reports

02 April 2010 21:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Guinea-Bissau President Malam Bacai Sanha held a meeting with Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior on Friday after the West African country was shocked by soldiers’ action to arrest the government leader the previous day, APA reports quoting â€œXinhuanetâ€.
Gomes Junior was witnessed with a group of soldiers on his way to the presidency for an urgent meeting, a sign indicating that he was still under watch after reportedly released on Thursday, according to reports reaching here.
The situation is complicated with government ministers condemning Thursday’s event at an extraordinary meeting, and soldiers detaining the chief of defense staff, General Jose Zamora Induta, and 40 other officers.
Induta’s deputy Antonio Indjai replaced him as the new army chief, who said on Thursday that the army was still submissive to political powers, while threatening to kill the prime minister if protests continued against the military action.
Hundreds of people gathered in front of the office of the prime minister in the capital Bissau, protesting against "coup d’etat" after Gomes Junior was taken away from his office by soldiers to an unknown place on Thursday morning.