Guinea Bissau President accuses former Navy Chief of failed coup

Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Embalo has accused a former Navy Chief, Jose Tchuto of being behind a failed coup earlier this month.

Embalo, who launched an investigation into what he described as a well-funded and tightly planned assassination attempt, said Tchuto and his aides Tchamy Yala and Papis Djeme were behind the coup bid and were among those arrested.

Heavily armed men attacked government buildings in the capital, Bissau, on February 1 while the President was chairing a cabinet meeting.
The three men named by the president were arrested in April 2013 on board a boat off the coast of West Africa by undercover operatives from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, for their involvement in a high-profile US drug sting and conspiring to ship cocaine into the US.