{Brazzaville (AFP) – Congolese authorities have released Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko, a former army chief who is running against incumbent Denis Sassou Nguesso in presidential elections in March, Mokoko’s lawyer said.}<\/p>\n
“He was questioned… in relation to a police investigation” for six hours Monday, his lawyer Eric Yvon Ibouanga told AFP, adding that he could not disclose details of the investigation.<\/p>\n
Public prosecutor Andre Oko Ngakala ordered Mokoko’s arrest on Friday, reportedly over statements by the general that had been “widely disseminated on the street and social networks”.<\/p>\n
Since February 13, when Mokoko held his first campaign rally, a video has been circulating on the Internet that appears to implicate him in an attempted coup.<\/p>\n
The video, taken sometime in the early 2000s, has been denounced as a fake by Mokoko’s campaign.<\/p>\n
Congo’s military chief from 1987 to 1993, Mokoko is currently special representative of the African Union Commission in the neighbouring Central African Republic.<\/p>\n
He is a longtime ally of Sassou Nguesso but on February 3 he announced his resignation as the president’s advisor on peace and security, a post he had held since 2005.<\/p>\n
On February 8 he announced plans to run in the March 20 election and challenge his former boss.<\/p>\n
Source:AFP:[Congo presidential candidate released after questioning->http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/congo-presidential-candidate-released-questioning-050136128.html]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Brazzaville (AFP) – Congolese authorities have released Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko, a former army chief who is running against incumbent Denis Sassou Nguesso in presidential elections in March, Mokoko’s lawyer said.} “He was questioned… in relation to a police investigation” for six hours Monday, his lawyer Eric Yvon Ibouanga told AFP, adding that he could not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23436"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23436"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}