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Guinea-Bissau ’coup leader Pansau N’Tchama’ paraded with Portuguese flag

28 October 2012 03:58 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Guinea-Bissau’s military says it has arrested the man behind an attack on an elite army barracks a week ago which Bissau said was an attempted coup, APA reports quoting Press TV.

On Saturday, army soldiers put a Portuguese flag over Captain Pansau N’Tchamaâ€™s shoulders and paraded him at army headquarters in the capital, suggesting that the countryâ€™s former colonial ruler Portugal had planned the coup.

Seven heavily armed soldiers accompanied Nâ€™Tchama, who was wearing only a shirt and boxer shorts with his hands and bare feet tied.

On October 21, gunmen attacked an army barracks near the airport in Bissau where at least seven people were killed. Soldiers fought off the assault after about an hour and forced the armed men to escape, witnesses said.

Captain N’Tchama was arrested on Saturday morning with two suspected co-conspirators in Bolama, the capital of the Bijagos archipelago.

On October 22, Bissau blamed Portugal and former Guinea-Bissauan Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior for the attack on the barracks.

"The government considers Portugal, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) and a former prime minister, Carlos Gomes Junior as the instigators of this attempt at destabilization...," Guinea-Bissauan Communications Minister Fernando Vaz said in a statement.

The main purpose of the raid is to bring Gomes Junior back to power, he added.

Guinea-Bissau has a history of coups and uprisings since it declared independence from Portugal in 1974.

The military seized power in a coup in April 2012 in the African country.