Sierra Leone ex-president returns to country after treason case dropped

Former Sierra Leone president Ernest Bai Koroma returned to his home country on Sunday, where authorities welcomed him after treason charges against him over an alleged coup attempt were dropped.Koroma had left for Nigeria in 2024, days after being charged with treason and other offences over a deadly 2023 army uprising.The former president, who led Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2018, arrived at the international airport in the capital, Freetown, accompanied by Nigerian ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and Nigerian Foreign Minister Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, an Agence France-Presse journalist said.He was welcomed by Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Rahman Swarray and officials from Koroma’s party, the opposition All People’s Congress (APC).“Today I have come back home and I’m happy,” Koroma told journalists, smiling.Koroma had been cleared by Sierra Leonean authorities to travel to Nigeria for three months for medical treatment but ended up staying more than two years.In July, Sierra Leone’s justice ministry said it had dropped the charges against him, without giving a reason.