Armed men round up top officials in MaliBy SERGE DANIEL | Wednesday, April 18  2012 at  09:05

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.

Junta

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.

But as Diarra takes charge of the interim government, he will have to contend with the junta which observers said carried out the high-profile arrests to show it has no intention of being sidelined by politicians.

"The arrest (of Cisse) clearly shows the junta's desire to not cede power to civilians," the former minister's office said in a statement sent to AFP in Dakar.

"We will hold the junta and its allies responsible for anything that happens to Soumaila Cisse," the statement added.

One of Sidibe's family members said "several armed men including two or three wearing masks" raided his home, arresting him for the third time since the coup.

Police chief Mahamadou Diagouraga, former defence minister Sadio Gassama and Hamidou Sissoko, a top aide to ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure, were among the others arrested in the overnight raids and whisked to Kati.

In a statement released late Tuesday, Colonel Moussa Sinko Coulibaly, adviser top the junta head, confirmed that "civil and military figures" had been picked up on the basis of "serious information."

Investigations into the activities of those seized were underway and legal action may be taken against them, he added, without identifying the detainees, saying how many had been arrested or saying what they were accused of.

A Malian security source said the arrests would be explained "when the time comes."

-AFP-