RSF journalist acquitted of defamation in lawsuit filed by son of former Malian president
A Paris judicial court acquitted Arnaud Froger, head of the Investigation Desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), following a defamation lawsuit filed by Karim Keïta, son of a former president of Mali. Keïta has been repeatedly mentioned in the organisation’s investigations concerning the 2016 disappearance of Malian journalist Birama Touré.
This is yet another legal setback for Karim Keïta, who has relentlessly targeted journalists working on this case — without success. But we’re still waiting for the real victory: truth and justice. This former Malian dignitary is still on the run. He has never responded to the accusations made against him by multiple witnesses regarding his alleged role in Birama Touré’s disappearance in 2016. Other key figures wanted by the Malian judiciary continue to live freely in the country without facing any real consequences. According to our investigation, this journalist did not simply disappear: he was secretly detained and died under circumstances that have yet to be clarified. If they truly wish to seek the truth, the Malian executive and judiciary still have the means to uncover it.”
In its ruling issued on Thursday, 20 February 2025, the 17th chamber of the Judicial Court of Paris acquitted Arnaud Froger, head of the RSF Investigation Desk, of defamation. The charges were brought by Karim Keïta, former president of the Security and Defense Commission of the Malian National Assembly, who is being pursued in his home country for his alleged role in the 2016 disappearance of journalist Birama Touré. Citing the vagueness of the accusations and their inherent contradictions, the court declared the complaint null and void.
For seven years, RSF has been meticulously investigating the disappearance of Birama Touré, a journalist for Le Sphinx, a renowned investigative weekly. Touré vanished on the evening of 29 January 2016 in Bamako, the Malian capital. It took years of work and cross-checking before RSF was able to publish the first part of its investigation on 7 July 2021. A year after the fall of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta’s regime, the Malian courts issued an international arrest warrant against his son, Karim Keïta, for his alleged role in the reporter’s disappearance.
At this point in the investigation, RSF had established three key facts: the preliminary investigation into Birama Touré’s death, led by the gendarmerie (military police), was hasty, botched, and biased towards the theory of a voluntary disappearance. It lacked any factual basis and acted as a smokescreen: Birama Touré was investigating Karim Keïta at the time of his disappearance and, according to numerous testimonies, Birama Touré was secretly detained and very likely died in the Malian intelligence services’ prisons due to his journalistic work on the case.
Alleged murderers promoted and decorated
A few months later, following a new investigation conducted on the ground in Bamako, additional witnesses confirmed to RSF that the journalist had been covertly detained. One witness provided precise details about the journalist’s death and the removal of his body from the prison. Other sources, including one very close to Birama Touré’s investigation, revealed that the journalist was working on a large-scale embezzlement case involving Karim Keïta. These new revelations were published and detailed in a video on 3 February 2022, which prompted the defamation lawsuit filed by Karim Keïta and his legal team. When contacted, they declined to respond to the RSF request for comment. Two other journalists who also investigated this case — Adama Dramé, publisher of Le Sphinx in Bamako, and Vincent Hugeux, former senior reporter at L'Express in Paris — had also been sued by Karim Keïta and acquitted by the courts.
In January 2024, RSF also exposed serious obstructions to justice and the dissemination of factual news perpetrated by the Malian junta in power. The authorities ignored at least four requests from the Malian Courts to make several military officers indicted for their alleged role in the journalist’s disappearance and murder available for questioning. Not only are these officers still free but, as RSF reported, some are still serving, have been appointed or promoted to prestigious positions and was even decorated. At the time of publication, Colonel Cheick Oumar N’Diaye, one of the most prominent intelligence officials in Mali at the time of Birama Touré’s death was serving as an advisor to the Ministry of Defense — the very institution responsible for authorising his availability to the Malian judiciary. The conflict of interest is blatant.
All RSF sources in this investigation have been made anonymous for security reasons.
