Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko

General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko (born 1947) is a Congolese army officer and politician who served as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of the Congo from 1987 to 1993.

Mokoko became President Denis Sassou Nguesso's Adviser for Peace and Security in 2005, and later he also served as the Special Representative of the African Union Commission in the Central African Republic. He resigned from his post as presidential adviser on 3 February 2016, and shortly afterward, on 8 February 2016, he stated that he planned to stand against Sassou Nguesso as a candidate in the March 2016 presidential election.^[1] In the days after Mokoko announced his candidacy, a video (reportedly from the 2000s) that indicated his involvement in a coup plot surfaced on the Internet. On 19 February, orders were issued for Mokoko's arrest, and police blocked the roads near his home.^[2] He was questioned by police and released on 21 February.^[3]

Mokoko placed third in the election. He was later arrested in June 2016,^[4] facing charges of "breaching internal state security and the illegal detention of weapons of war and munitions".^[5]

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