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Police charge four with complicity in Manlan's death

    NAIROBI

    Burundi police charged four men on Wednesday with complicity in the death of WHO representative Kassi Manlan whose body was found near a sailing club the previous day, government sources and news organisations reported.

    The suspects, who were guards at Manlan's home and office, worked for the private security firm Protection, Surveillance et Gardiennage. State prosecutor Gerard Ngendabanka told the BBC the guards had last reported seeing Manlan leave his home around 5 a.m. on Tuesday.

    "I have just ordered that charges be brought against four employees of Protection, Surveillance et Gardiennage" Ngendabanka, wrote in a letter to the justice minister, a copy of which AFP obtained.

    Ngendabanka told the BBC that investigators found blood in Manlan's home. Fishermen found his body Tuesday afternoon near Bujumbura's Circle Nautique sports club on the northeastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. Manlan, an Ivorian medical doctor, assumed his post in Burundi this year. In 1998 he was in charge of the Development of Human Resources for Health Unit at the WHO Regional Office for Africa. He was a specialist in hepato-gastro-enterology, and would have been 55 years old on 1 Dec.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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