RUSSIA ACCUSED IN FRENCH POLL
E I G H T Y - T W O C h i b o k schoolgirls seized three years ago by Boko Haram have been freed in exchange for detained suspects with the extremist group, Nigeria’s government announced early yesterday.
It was the largest release negotiated yet in the battle to save nearly 300 girls whose mass abduction exposed the mounting threat posed by the Islamic State- linked fighters.
The statement from the office of President Muhammadu Buhari was the first confirmation that his government had made a swap for the girls.
After an initial release of 21 Chibok girls in October, the government denied making an exchange or paying ransom.
The April 2014 abduction by Boko Haram brought the extremist group’s rampage in northern Nigeria to world attention and, for families of the schoolgirls, began years marked with heartbreak.
Some relatives did not live long enough to see their daughters released. Many of the captive girls, most of them Christians, were forced to marry their captors and give birth to children in remote forest hideouts without ever knowing if they would see their parents again. It is feared that other girls were strapped with explosives and sent on missions as suicide bombers.
Before Saturday’s release, 195 of the girls had remained captive. Now 113 of the girls remain unaccounted for. FRANCE’S new president will be known this morning, as the spectre of Russian interference hangs over the most bitter presidential election campaign in decades.
The 39- year- old centre- left independent Emmanuel Macron was on track to defeat his 48- year- old ultra- right rival Marine Le Pen, with the result expected to be declared in the early hours of this morning.
But in similar circumstances to the US election, where the computers of the campaign team of Hillary Clinton’s Democrats were hacked and damaging information passed on to WikiLeaks, which published it, Mr Macron’s En Marche! campaign suffered a similar hack.
A massive cache of documents, emails and photographs were leaked in the final 48 hours of the campaign, mixed in with fake and fabricated documents.
The almost immediate publication of stories about the documents by dodgy Russian websites gives rise to the suspicion that Russia may be behind the leaks, in support of Ms Le Pen, who admires Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.
En Marche! said it had been the victim of a “massive and co- ordinated’’ hack, with the information published anonymously online through document- sharing site Pastebin.
While there was nothing immediately emerging which looked damaging to Mr Macron, who appeared to have the keys to the Elysee Palace with- in reach last night, the possibility of Russian involvement, by government or private actors, will further enrage the west.
In the UK, intelligence agencies are warning of Russian interference.
The volatile French election campaign has seen the leading Republican candidate, François Fillon, knocked out in the first round after being indicted by French authorities investigating his payment of more than $ 1.2 million of taxpayer funds to his wife and children to work for him.
The Socialist candidate, Benoit Hamon was also knocked out at the first round with just 6.5 per cent of the vote, meaning it is the first election since the 1950s where neither of the major parties has a candidate in the second round.
French authorities also flagged a potential defamation proceeding against Ms Le Pen after she used a live television debate to question whether Mr Macron had a secret offshore bank account in the Bahamas.
The former investment banker denied it but suspicious news stories sprang up immediately about it on overseas- based websites and were quickly shared on social media.