Amadou Haya Sanogo speaks to journalists at his headquarters in the Kati military camp, just outside Bamako, Mali. Sanogo, who overthrew Mali's president in 2012, will no longer stand trial on charges he had 21 soldiers killed after a failed counter-coup that same year, an appeals court ruled in Bamako Monday March 15, 2021. The government of the West African nation, though, had expressed concern that the trial could inflame tensions in the already volatile country. Sanogo and his co-defendants did not go on trial until late 2016 and then the case was swiftly adjourned. When they attempted to lead a counter-coup the following month, human rights groups say Sanogo responded with force.

FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 file photo, President of Mali Amadou Toumani Toure gestures after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the chancellory in Berlin, Germany. Mali's former president Amadou Toumani Toure, who served as Mali's president from 2002 until March 2012 when he was deposed by a military coup, has died at the age of 72, according to Senegal's President Macky Sall on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)BAMAKO – Mali’s former president Amadou Toumani Toure has died at the age of 72. Toure served as Mali’s president from 2002 until March 2012 when he was deposed by a military coup. He then became known as the “soldier of democracy.”Toure then served as a general under Mali’s president Alpha Oumar Konare, who was elected in 1992.

Mali's transitional president Bah N'Daw on Sunday, Sept, 27, 2020 appointed former minister of foreign affairs, Moctar Ouane, as the West African nation's prime minister, with the appointment of a civilian prime minister being a major condition imposed by the West African regional economic bloc, ECOWAS, on Mali to lift sanctions that were imposed after an Aug. 18 coup. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)BAMAKO – Mali’s transitional president appointed former minister of foreign affairs, Moctar Ouane, on Sunday as the West African nation’s prime minister days after being sworn into office. The appointment of a civilian prime minister was a major condition imposed by the West African regional economic bloc, ECOWAS, on Mali to lift sanctions that were imposed after an Aug. 18 coup. He also served as Mali’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1995 to 2002 and later as a diplomatic adviser to ECOWAS. The junta, which calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, deposed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August, detaining him, the prime minister and other government officials.

Anti-government protesters burn tires and barricade roads in the capital Bamako, Mali, Friday, July 10, 2020. Thousands marched Friday in Mali's capital in anti-government demonstrations urged by an opposition group that rejects the president's promises of reforms. We must go beyond ourselves and only consider Mali, the president said in a televised address late Saturday. The president, who was elected in 2013, already had promised last week that he would dissolve the court, one of the key demands made by the protesters. Thousands of protesters had marched through the streets of Bamako, the capital, on Friday, briefly occupying the state television offices.

Anti-government protesters burn tires and barricade roads in the capital Bamako, Mali, Friday, July 10, 2020. Thousands marched Friday in Mali's capital in anti-government demonstrations urged by an opposition group that rejects the president's promises of reforms. (AP Photo/Baba Ahmed)BAMAKO Police fired tear gas Saturday in Malis capital as scattered groups came out for a second straight day of anti-government protests, defying the president's latest call for dialogue. The anti-government movement still wants the National Assembly dissolved. Its name, the June 5 Movement, or M5, reflects the day demonstrators first took to the streets en masse.