Gabon’s military says ex-president Ali Bongo ‘free’ to travel abroad

• Ali Bongo is free to travel abroad if he needs medical help, those who ousted him announced.
• Gabon’s deposed president has been under house arrest since the military seized power.
• General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema was sworn in as the new head of state on Monday.

Gabon’s former president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, has been released from house arrest and is free to leave the country for medical treatment, the military which removed him from power last month has said.

Bongo, who had been held under house arrest since a military coup on 30 August was toppled from power shortly after he was declared the winner of much-criticised elections that would have seen him extend his 14-year rule as president.

“Given his state of health, the former President of the Republic Ali Bongo Ondimba is free to move about. He may, if he wishes, travel abroad for medical checkups,” Gabon’s military spokesman Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi said in a statement read on national television on Wednesday evening.

READ | How AU suspension works for Gabon (and Niger, Sudan, Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso)

The statement announcing Bongo’s release from house arrest was signed by General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, who was sworn in as Gabon’s new head of state on Monday.

Oligui is a cousin of Bongo, had served as a bodyguard to Bongo’s late father and also headed the country’s republican guard, an elite military unit.

Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Dakar, Senegal, said Bongo now has the option to leave the country if he decides to do so.

Bongo suffered a stroke five years ago and has not had access to his own doctors, Haque said.

After taking an oath of office in the presidential palace on Monday, Oligui said the military had seized control of the country without violence and would return power to the people by organising credible and free elections.

The coup has been welcomed by members of the public in Gabon but has drawn condemnation from the African Union and the international community.