More than twelve years after the assassination of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon in Mali, the anti-terrorism investigating judge called for the declassification of new defense secret documents, following a request from the civil parties.

Published on: 02/09/2026 - 2:08 p.m.

The anti-terrorism investigating judge investigating the assassination of RFI journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, killed in November 2013 in Mali, has requested a new declassification of defense secret documents.

This request, reported Monday February 9 by AFP, was sent on January 12 to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. It follows a request from the civil parties.

“There have already been several declassifications but they were limited, with redacted documents,” Danièle Gonod, president of the Association of Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, told AFP.

To (re)readRFI journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon assassinated in Mali ten years ago

“We were opposed to defense secrecy, telling us that this was part of the protection of sources in Mali, but today there is no longer a single French soldier in Mali, therefore no more sources to protect,” she noted.

Ghislaine Dupont, 57, and Claude Verlon, 55, were kidnapped during a report for RFI, then killed on November 2, 2013 near Kidal, a few months after the French operation Serval intended to counter jihadists threatening to take Bamako.

If this double assassination was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), light has never been shed on the tragedy.

Two suspects still alive

According to the official version, a convoy of French soldiers discovered the bodies of the reporters, shot dead, not far from their captors' pick-up truck. The latter had broken down, according to investigators, who favor the theory of a failed hostage-taking by a jihadist group.

For Danièle Gonod, “the investigations carried out on the telephone show that it is a real jihadist network, political and organized, with links in Algeria”.

The judge notably asked the ministry for information on two suspects still alive: one of the two alleged sponsors, Sidan Ag Hita, and one of the four members of the commando, Hamadi Ag Mohamed.

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The judge notes that Sidan Ag Hita has "become an important jihadist leader to the point, according to the press, of negotiating directly with the Malian state for the release of hostages", according to his request of which AFP was aware.

The magistrate also asks for information on Cheikh Ag Haoussa, a Tuareg leader supposed to welcome the "repentant jihadists", with whom the journalists had an appointment in Kidal.

“A few hours before the kidnapping, Cheikh Ag Haoussa was allegedly seen in his vehicle in the company of Baye Ag Bakabo, head of the commando responsible for the kidnappings and assassinations,” he notes.

He also relayed the astonishment of the civil parties at the absence of a report from the French Special Forces on the tragedy and demanded the declassification of "any document" attesting that a person who ordered the kidnapping "would have contacted, after the events" a member of the commando "to reproach him for having 'wasted the goods'".

With AFP

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