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Jailed Gabon opposition figure and former prime minister Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze has taken his case to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to fight his recent imprisonment.
Bilie-By-Nze, a vocal critic of the current administration and head of the Together for Gabon party, was arrested last month over fraud and abuse of trust allegations dating back to 2008.
His Paris-based lawyer, Arthur Vercken, rejected the accusations on Friday, calling the detention a legal outrage and completely groundless.
According to his legal team, the case arises from a public event organised in 2008 when Bilie-By-Nze was a lawmaker.
Because state financing was delayed, participants advanced personal funds, and one individual now accuses him of failing to repay that advance.
Beyond the petition to the African Union rights body, Bilie-By-Nze’s defence team has also filed appeals with the United Nations, the French presidency, and France’s foreign ministry to secure international intervention.
The global legal push follows a series of domestic defeats, including a Libreville court’s recent rejection of his requests for provisional release and challenges to the detention order.
Before his arrest, Bilie-By-Nze, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2025 presidential election, had publicly criticised a state social media ban and controversial nationality law reforms.
Meanwhile, the Gabonese presidency has defended the proceedings, stating that the matter is strictly handled by an independent judiciary.
