Armed men have rounded up top Malian officials including two presidential hopefuls, in a show of force by a junta that seized power last month, as the interim leader named a Microsoft executive as prime minister.
Those arrested Tuesday included ex-prime minister Modibo Sidibe and Soumaila Cisse, a former minister who led the West African Economic and Monetary Union until November last year.
Cisse suffered an unspecified injury while fleeing his home, and was later arrested at a hospital and taken by ambulance to the junta's headquarters in Kati, near Bamako, his office said.
Cisse's home was "vandalised" and a nephew and a caretaker were also injured, the office said. Both Sidibe and Cisse were leading candidates in a presidential election set for April 29 that was derailed by the March 22 coup.
Aides to Mali's interim president Dioncounda Traore, who took office following an April 6 deal brokered by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), said he had no prior knowledge of the raid. On Tuesday, Traore satisfied a key condition of the ECOWAS deal by naming a prime minister to head a unity government that will include the military.
The new premier, Cheick Modibo Diarra, is a noted astrophysicist who served as Microsoft's chairman for Africa and taught mechanical and aerospace engineering at Howard University in Washington DC.
Also a US citizen, he had planned to run in the aborted election this month as the candidate of the Rally for Mali's Development that he founded last year.
"We must, according to our abilities, be fully committed in order to find solutions, lasting solutions, to this problem here and to regain the totality of our country, its integrity," the 60-year-old Diarra said on public television.
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