Six men linked to Mali's former transitional president Bah N'Daw have gone on trial in Bamako on charges of conspiracy against the government, in what defence lawyers describe as a politically motivated prosecution. The case, which opened on 14 July before the Bamako Court of Appeal, is one of the oldest such affairs in nearly six years of military-led transition in the West African country — and the first real opportunity for the defendants to challenge the accusations against them in open court.

The defendants include Colonel Kassoum Goïta, former head of Mali's state intelligence services, and Kalilou Doumbia, a law professor who served as secretary-general of the presidency during the first transitional period. The other four are a senior state security officer, a police commissioner, a businessman and a Muslim cleric. All six held their positions between the coup of August 2020 — which ousted longtime president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta — and a second military takeover in May 2021, when the same generals who had appointed Bah N'Daw removed him after he sought to reshuffle the government. The defendants say they were abducted by state security agents in late 2021, tortured, and held for close to five years without a substantive hearing. The precise acts they are accused of have never been publicly disclosed by authorities.

At the bar, Colonel Kassoum Goïta — who shares a surname but has no family connection to transitional president Assimi Goïta, the general who led both coups — mounted a striking counter-offensive. He argued there was no rational motive to plot in favour of Bah N'Daw, who had no desire to prolong his time in office. He also alleged that his real offence was having access, through his intelligence role, to sensitive information about the ruling military figures — including, he claimed, knowledge of public funds from the Keïta era being placed in offshore accounts by the current leadership, and of a plan by the generals to remain in power far longer than they had publicly promised. Bah N'Daw, he said, had been informed and had objected. No specific sums were named. One of the co-accused, businessman Sandi Ahmed Saloum, provided the most graphic account of alleged torture, with photographs submitted to the court file.

Defence lawyers sought to have the charges dismissed on procedural grounds, citing forced confessions, detention without legal counsel and the existence of a 2021 amnesty law protecting the architects of both coups. The court rejected both requests. Meanwhile, the sole military witness on whose testimony the conspiracy charges appear to rest has been absent since proceedings began. Lawyers filed a complaint in December 2021 against the current head of state security, General Modibo Koné, for alleged torture, criminal association and theft; it has never been acted upon.

The case carries significance well beyond the six defendants. In nearly six years of transition — with no elections held — Mali's military government has repeatedly used conspiracy charges against political figures, civil society actors and military officers. For the families and lawyers of the accused, the trial represents a long-overdue chance at accountability. Whether the proceedings will deliver it remains to be seen: the sole witness whose account underpins the charges has yet to appear.