Summary Security forces opened fire and mowed down demonstrators after tens of thousands gathered.
CONAKRY (AFP) - Guinean magistrates indicted the former head of the ousted junta on Wednesday in Burkina Faso over the 2009 Conakry stadium massacre in which at least 157 protesters were killed, his lawyer said.
Security forces opened fire and mowed down demonstrators after tens of thousands gathered at the capital s main stadium on September 28, 2009 to protest against the military regime led by Moussa Dadis Camara.
Women were raped, hundreds of people were wounded and dozens are still missing.
"He has been indicted by a pool of magistrates visiting from Conakry to question him about his involvement in the events of September 28 2009," Camara s advocate Jean-Baptiste Jocamey Haba told AFP by phone from Burkina Faso s capital Ouagadougou, the ousted dictator s home-in-exile since 2010.
Camara seized power in 2008 when longtime strongman Lansana Conte died. He ruled for close to a year before being forced to flee the country by an assassination attempt.
Hundreds of victims have given evidence since Guinea opened its inquiry into the massacre in 2010, according to local and global rights organisations.
Camara s newly-formed Party of Patriotic Front for Democracy and Development (PFDD) confirmed that he would for the first time be giving evidence to the hearings as "the accused and not simply as a witness".
A spokesman described the prosecution as a "purely political" reaction to Camara s announcement that he intended to run for president in elections to be staged in October.
The strongman told a meeting of the party in Ouagadougou in May he would push a "national, unifying" agenda as their leader.
Encouraging progress
Two judges and a prosecutor from Guinea interrogated Camara over more than two hours in Ouagadougou s senior criminal court Wednesday following a request by Burkina Faso for assistance in the case, said his lawyer, who was present.
An aide told AFP Camara would be summoned to the court again next week, adding that the soldier "seemed relieved to have been heard".
Guinean judicial sources told AFP last month 13 other members of the junta were facing charges over the massacre, on top of eight people already indicted.
The list of defendants and their charges has not been made public but they are said to include a policeman, the then housing minister and a civilian adviser to the junta.
The first eight charged include the junta s security, public health and special services ministers and Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Pivi, the former head of presidential security.
Pivi was charged two years ago with several counts of murder, rape, pillaging and arson by the three judges in charge of the case, according to a judicial source.
He was not at the stadium that day but the judges accuse him of masterminding the deadly crackdown that continued in the following days.
Pivi was a leading figure in the junta and he was in charge of presidential security for current leader Alpha Conde at the time he was charged.
Conde s government was initially criticised for not taking sufficient action against the suspected masterminds of the stadium massacre.
Camara s indictment follows a visit to Conakry last week by International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who welcomed "significant and encouraging progress" in the investigation into the massacre.
