Guinea’s Former Dictator Pardoned Over the 2009 Stadium Massacre

By WILSON MCMAKIN

9:14 AM EDT, March 29, 2025

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Guinea’s ruling junta has pardoned the country’s former dictator, Moussa “Dadis” Camara, who was serving a 20-prison sentence for the 2009 stadium massacre by the military, according to a decree read on state television.

Camara was sentenced in July 2024 after he was found guilty of crimes against humanity in the deaths of at least 157 people at the stadium. Dozens of women were also raped.

Troops opened fire on demonstrators at the stadium who were protesting Camara’s plans to run for president, a year after staging a coup.

The junta at the time said “uncontrolled” elements of the army carried out the rapes and killings. But Camara’s top aides were at the stadium and did nothing to stop the massacre, a Human Rights Watch report said.

Many of the victims were shot, crushed or knifed to death while some of the women were dragged out from hiding and gang-raped by uniformed men over several days, witnesses said. Many could not flee the gunfire after Camara’s presidential guard surrounded the stadium and blocked the exits, according to survivors.

It took several days before the families of the victims were allowed to come and collect the bodies, and many never found their relatives.

“For us, it’s all hope that’s gone. After two years of trial and 13 years of unbearable pain for us who lost loved ones at the stadium, this is what it leads to: a presidential pardon for the executioner,” said Idrissa Sow, a metalworker who lost his nephew in the massacre.

Camara fled into exile after he survived an assassination attempt several months after the massacre but returned to Guinea more than a decade later. The current junta, led by Mamady Doumbouya, seized power in September 2021.

“If I’m here before you it’s because of my patriotism, otherwise I would not have agreed to come,” he said on his first day in court. He said that he was asleep as the massacre unfolded.

While in jail late last year, Camara was released by gunmen who stormed the country’s main prison but was back in custody hours later as his lawyer said he had been kidnapped.