Burkina Faso Arrests 5 Frenchmen on Charges of Espionage

Sudanhorizon – Agencies

The number of Frenchmen detained on charges of espionage has reached 5 people after the authorities in Burkina Faso arrested a former soldier in the French army in the capital “Ouagadougou”, after suspecting him of espionage. Members of the State Security Directorate searched his room at the Lancaster Hotel and placed him under house arrest since the middle of this month.

The Burkinabe authorities suspect this former soldier, who works as a security consultant for an Australian mining company, of espionage. Suspicions were raised by the communications and exchanges that the National Intelligence Service was able to find in his personal belongings, such as his computer and cell phone, which were searched.

Sudanhorizon news website’s follow-ups indicate that the suspect has been transferred since his arrest to a villa in “Ouaga 2000,” one of the capital’s neighborhoods, where four French agents previously lived under surveillance and were arrested last December on the same suspicions of espionage. However, it seems that negotiations between Paris and Ouagadougou to release them have reached a dead end.