Madagascar's national gendarmerie confirmed on Friday the arrest of Colonel Patrick Rakotomamonjy, a military doctor detained in the Antananarivo (the Malagasy capital) neighbourhood of By Pass on the evening of 16 April and transferred to the Tsiafahy detention facility south of the city. Rakotomamonjy had been the subject of an arrest warrant since early April on suspicion of orchestrating a plot to assassinate President Michaël Randrianirina, head of Madagascar's transitional government known as the Refondation, with eleven others already held in connection with the case. The colonel had previously served briefly as director of a presidential grievance office before being dismissed in January, after which he gained a wide following by posting viral videos on Facebook alleging high-level corruption within the transitional regime — accusations that made him a popular, if divisive, figure among Malagasy citizens.