Ousted Malian president to return from exile

Mutinous soldiers overthrew the government and detained Toure on March 22, 2012, precipitating the fall of the country’s northern territory to Islamist rebels allied with Al-Qaeda.

The coup led by army captain Amadou Sanogo toppled what had been heralded as one of the region’s most stable democracies, and Toure has been living in exile in neighbouring Senegal ever since.

Mali’s current president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (also known as IBK), took office in September 2013 in an election held after Sanogo agreed to step aside.

“With the agreement of Mali’s president, I will return to Bamako on Sunday,” Toure told AFP by phone, in what is believed to be his first public statement since he left the country.

“I am happy. I would like to thank the Senegalese authorities. I will see my brother, President IBK, on Sunday, and I am not there to do politics,” he added.

Keita said at an event earlier in the day the moment had arrived “for us to tell our brother Amadou Toumani Toure to return to Mali”.

Mali holds a presidential election in 2018 but Keita has yet to say whether he will seek another term.

“I will send a state plane to fetch him and bring him back to Mali,” Keita added, describing how he had invited the ex-leader for lunch on Sunday.

Toure was accused by Keita’s government of treason over the failure of soldiers to tackle a rebellion led by Tuareg people that eventually led to jihadists trying to take over the country. The charges were dropped last year.

Islamist militants took control of northern cities in Mali in March and April 2012 but were chased out by a French-led military operation launched in January 2013, which is still under way.

Mali’s army, French soldiers and a UN mission (MINUSMA) have little control of large tracts of the country, which regularly come under attack in spite of a peace accord signed with Tuareg leaders in May and June 2015, aimed at isolating the jihadists.