/ 2 February 2001

IVORY COAST POLICE ARREST OUATTARA?S AIDE

POLICE have arrested an adviser to Ivory Coast’s former prime minister Alassane Ouattara in connection with an attempted coup. Police and paramilitary gendarmes searched the house of Jean Jacques Bechio, a former minister under Ivory Coast’s founding president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, and accused him of harbouring people connected with a thwarted coup earlier this month. State television showed footage of weapons and munitions which it said had been found in Bechio’s house. – Reuters