Niger's ousted President Mohamed Bazoum is being held in a secret location by the junta that seized power in the West African state, lawyers representing him said on Friday, denying accusations that the president had tried to escape, APA reports citing Reuters.
Bazoum has been in detention since a July 26 coup, and there have been international calls for him to be released.
The junta said late on Thursday that Bazoum and his family, with the help of accomplices in the security forces, had planned to drive a vehicle to the outskirts of the capital Niamey and catch a helicopter ride to neighbouring Nigeria.
His lawyers rejected it as nothing but a concoction, however.
"We energetically reject these made-up accusations against President Bazoum," Mohamed Seydou Diagne, one of Bazoum's lawyers, said in the statement, adding that the junta had "crossed another red line with the secret detention."
The lawyers said in the statement that Bazoum and his family had no access to lawyers or the outside world.
They were previously kept in the presidential residence in the capital Niamey where electricity had been cut since Aug. 2, and only one doctor could visit them every second day to take them supplies, they said.
The doctor was denied access on Friday, they added.
The lawyers demanded that the junta show proof that the president and wife and son were alive.
Bazoum's party and family members say he has had no access to running water, electricity or fresh goods, prompting condemnation from the country's former western allies.
Follow us on Telegram
t.me/apanewsaz
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
PHOTO'>
