France: RSF in Court Following Defamation Suit by Son of Former Malian President Karim Keïta
Arnaud Froger, head of the investigations desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), will appear on Tuesday, 17 December, before the 17th chamber of the Paris judicial court, accused of defamation by Karim Keïta, the son of Mali’s former president, who was mentioned in RSF's investigation into the 2016 disappearance of journalist Birama Touré in Bamako. This is the third time Karim Keïta has filed a lawsuit against a journalist in connection with this case.
17/12/2024 Update
During the hearing, the prosecution requested the dismissal of the complaint filed by Karim Keïta against Arnaud Froger, head of the RSF Investigations Bureau, arguing in line with RSF’s lawyers who highlighted the absence of specific allegations. The complaint covers all the statements made, even though many parts of the incriminated RSF video do not concern the person bringing the lawsuit. The 17th chamber of the Paris Judicial Court has deferred its decision and will issue its ruling on February 20, 2025.
"RSF, which tirelessly fights against impunity for crimes committed against journalists, will not be intimidated by these lawsuits, which have no other purpose than to dissuade the journalists closely examining this case from investigating the disappearance of Birama Touré. This is one of the most thoroughly documented investigative cases that RSF has worked on in recent years. We will defend our work and continue our investigations with the conviction that they contribute to uncovering the truth.
"The upcoming hearing will provide RSF the opportunity to present to the court the full scope of investigative work carried out by Arnaud Froger over the past six years. The proceedings before the Paris criminal court will help establish the seriousness of the investigative work conducted, and the court will thereby understand why Mr. Karim Keïta is attempting to silence all those who seek the truth about the disappearance of journalist Birama Touré. I believe that the defamation lawsuit brought by Mr. Karim Keïta is a perfect example of an abusive SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), as it aims to intimidate and silence those working to uncover the truth. Contrary to what Mr. Karim Keïta is attempting to conceal, he is personally implicated in the disappearance of Mr. Birama Touré. We trust the French justice system will penalise this abusive defamation suit and establish the criminal responsibilities of those involved in his disappearance.
The investigation began due to RSF’s serious doubt in the official narrative. The preliminary investigation conducted by the Malian gendarmerie, a military police force, military police in early 2016 found that Malian journalist Birama Touré had voluntarily disappeared, vanishing into thin air on the evening of 29 January, 2016, after completing his marriage paperwork earlier that day. This conclusion followed a botched, biased investigation and was unsupported by evidence. RSF documents crimes against journalists daily. Journalists don’t simply disappear — they are abducted, detained, and sometimes murdered.
In May 2018, after just a few days of journalistic investigation in Bamako, RSF identified numerous flaws in the gendarmerie’s official inquiry into the disappearance of Birama Touré, a journalist at Le Sphinx, an investigative newspaper at odds with Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta’s regime. Birama Touré’s relatives told RSF it was inconceivable that he would flee, especially as he left all his personal belongings at home. Even more troubling, his phone records, provided by the operator, were redacted — a cover-up move that not just anyone can pull off.
What happened to Birama Touré? Who had an incentive to harm him? RSF meticulously investigated this case for several years. In 2020, the regime of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, known as IBK, fell. His son, who chaired the powerful Defense Commission of the National Assembly, fled to Ivory Coast. Previously hushed voices began to speak out.
A year later, Mali’s judiciary — which had remained silent on the Birama Touré case under IBK’s regime — announced an international arrest warrant for Karim Keïta and the arrest of Mali’s former intelligence chief in connection with the case. These announcements corroborated RSF’s findings, which included information from a credible source who claimed to have spent several months detained alongside Birama Touré in the cells of the Directorate-General of ExternalSecurity (DGSE). RSF then published its first investigation into the case.
Unanswered questions and a defamation suit
A few months later, in November 2021, RSF conducted a new investigation on the ground in Bamako. The NGO interviewed several sources that corroborated and clarified some of the established facts. . At the time of his disappearance, the journalist was investigating a scandal involving vice and embezzlement allgedly involving Karim Keïta. Evidence of Birama Touré’s detention and sequestration at the DGSE facility multiplied, along with the identity of the person allegedly responsible for his suffering, according to several witnesses who had shared a cell with him. One of them also claimed to have seen several individuals accused in the Malian proceedings — including Karim Keïta — present on the day Birama Touré’s lifeless body was reportedly transported out of the detention facility.
Armed with this new information, RSF reached out to Karim Keïta’s lawyers once again before publishing its new investigation in January 2022. These requests for comment went unanswered, except for one response that stated they did not wish to discuss the matter again as RSF had its own “beliefs.” RSF replied that its investigations were not based on belief but on the evidence it had collected and cross-checked. Questions about Karim Keïta’s involvement remain unanswered.
Three journalists prosecuted by Karim Keïta since 2016
The second investigation was published on 30 January 2022. A video follow-up, in which the head of RSF’s investigations desk and Adama Dramé, former editor-in-chief of Le Sphinx, revisited the case, was released shortly after, on 3 February 2022. This video became the subject of the defamation suit filed by Karim Keïta and his legal team.
While Karim Keïta is suing journalists — including Adama Dramé in Bamako and Vincent Hugeux, a former senior reporter at L’Express in Paris — who have investigated Birama Touré’s case, he has never responded to the allegations against him in the criminal investigation opened in Mali. Although Malian authorities announced an international arrest warrant, it was never enforced. In December 2022, Karim Keïta was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department — notably for his role in the journalist’s presumed murder.
