Ex-president: ‘I am free in my country’

MALI’S toppled president Amadou Toumani Toure is free and unharmed somewhere inside the West African country, he told French broadcaster RFI in an interview yesterday.

“I am free in my country,” he said in his first public comments since soldiers removed him last week. “I think the most important thing today is to find a way out of the crisis.”

Thousands of demonstrators chanted pro-junta slogans in Mali’s capital Bamak yesterday, protesting against the threats of foreign powers to use sanctions to force the leaders of last week’s military coup to step down.

The coup, seen as a setback to fragile democratic gains in Africa, was triggered by army anger at Mr Toure’s handling of a ethnic Tuareg rebellion that in recent weeks has gained ground and inflicted losses on the army.