Three former ministers from Mali who were mentioned in international arrest warrants for alleged fraud have denied all wrongdoing and stated that they are ready to clarify their reputations.
The highest court of Mali issued arrest warrants this week for Tieman Hubert Coulibaly, Mamadou Igor Diarra, and Boubou Cisse, who were all previous ministers of finance.
Babaly Bah, a former director of the government-run Malian Solidarity Bank (BMS), is also named in a warrant.
All four are charged with "forgery" and misusing public funds in a case that, according to a judicial source, centres around a $60 million order for armoured vehicles placed in 2015 by the South African company Paramount, some of which was never delivered.
The alleged fraud allegedly took place under Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the previous elected president of the nation. After being overthrown in a coup in August 2020, he passed away in January.
Diarra, who is currently the CEO of a regional bank controlled by the Moroccan company Bank of Africa BMCE, claimed in a statement obtained by AFP on Wednesday that he only played a "administrative role" in handling the purchase request from the defence ministry.
He continued by saying that during his most recent visit to Mali in March, he had "spontaneously" approached the authorities to provide any information on any incidents about which he might have knowledge.
Cisse, who was appointed finance minister in 2016 and appointed prime minister in 2019, claimed in a statement on Monday that he had no involvement in the contract because, at the time, he was overseeing the mining ministry.
Insofar as the court system in our nation continues to be independent and impartial, he claimed he had "never sought to shirk responsibilities or escape the role of an individual before the law."
In a statement on Monday, Coulibaly, who served as the defence minister from 2015 to 2016, said that he first learned about the claims on television.
To "ensure the best operational preparedness of our military forces," he said that he had always acted.
If Malian investigators formally sought information from him, he promised to "answer swiftly."
Authorities imprisoned former leader Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga last year due to the purportedly fraudulent acquisition of a presidential aircraft in 2014.
Maiga passed while in jail in March despite his family's concerns that his condition was getting worse.
A protracted Islamist conflict in Mali has displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and claimed thousands of lives.
In addition, it is experiencing political unrest as a result of the military coups in August 2020 and May 2021.