President’s ex-aide ‘charged over anti-Trump tweets’

A former spokesperson for Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been charged for posting expletive-laden tweets on the president’s account, the AFP news agency reports.

The tweets had condemned US President Donald Trump for ordering the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.

Tiegoum Maiga admitted to authoring the tweets and issued an apology on his Twitter account.

He said the tweets, which have since been deleted, were meant for his personal account and that he had forgotten he still had access to the president’s account.

On Thursday he was charged and placed in detention for internet fraud and harmful data entry, AFP quoted his lawyer Moussa Maiga as saying.

The news agency said an unnamed judicial source had confirmed the charges.

“What is serious is the use of the presidential (Twitter) account to send a message of this nature which could create problems between our two countries,” a presidential official is quoted as saying.

Mr Maiga left his job as the president’s spokesperson in November.

Source:BBC