/ 14 April 1999

NO ASSASSINATION INQUIRY

THERE is to be no inquiry into the circumstances of the assassination of Niger’s president Ibrahim Bare Mainassara of Niger, the junta which took over at the weekend said.”We cannot talk of an enquiry into the accidental demise of president Mainassara,” junta spokesman Captain Djibrila Hima Hamidou told a press conference Tuesday.According to numerous witnesses, Mainassara was assassinated on Friday at a military base near Niamey by elements of the presidential guard, whose commander is now the new head of state. The United Nations Security Council Tuesday condemned the military coup that killed Niger’s president and called on junta leaders to restore the “constitutional order.”