A GUINEAN court has sentenced opposition leader Alpha Conde to five years in prison with hard labour on charges ranging from illegal deployment of armed forces to threatening the security of the state. Thirty-three of Conde’s 43 co-accused, many of them military personnel, were acquitted. The remaining 10 were given sentences of between 18 months and three years in jail. Conde was arrested in December 1998 during a presidential election in which he was standing as a candidate, ostensibly for trying to cross into Ivory Coast when the border had been formally closed for the poll. Officials later accused him of plotting to topple President Lansana Conte, who won the disputed poll in the first round. The state prosecutor had demanded life sentences for 41 of the defendants. – Reuters