Army Officer, Foe of 2012 Coup, Abducted in Mali

Men in army uniform overnight abducted an army officer who was opposed to a successful military coup in Mali two years ago, his family said Thursday.

"This was a trap laid for my son, Lieutenant Mohamed Ouattara," retired colonel Yaya Ouattara told AFP. "He was kidnapped during the night... by armed individuals wearing military uniform."

Another family member said he was seized by five armed men.

"They led my brother to the foot of a hill before kidnapping him," he said.

A defense ministry official said an inquiry would be opened "very rapidly" into the suspected abduction of Ouattara, who serves in the paratroop corps known as the "Red Berets".

After a military junta seized power in the largely desert west African nation in March 2012, several dozen Red Berets who had supported ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure were seized. Many have since vanished.

The coup led by Amadou Sanogo toppled what had been heralded as one of the region's most stable democracies and precipitated the fall of northern Mali to Al-Qaida-linked groups until a French-led military operation forced them out of the towns.

Sanogo was arrested in November 2013 after handing over power to a transitional regime in a deal brokered by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

He was last year charged and jailed with a score of his aides for "complicity in kidnapping, kidnapping and murders" in the matter of the Red Beret paratroopers.

Since December, almost 30 bodies suspected to be those of missing soldiers have been found in ditches near Kati, a garrison town outside Bamako, where Sanogo had set up his headquarters.

During their rule, Sanogo and his allies were also accused of violence against politicians, journalists and prominent members of civil society.