Guinea Bissau President dissolves parliament after corruption probe

Guinea-Bissau’s president has dissolved the nation’s parliament after what the government said was a failed coup.
A decree issued by President Umaro Sissoco Embalo on Monday cited a shootout in the capital, Bissau, last week.
“The date for holding the next legislative elections will be set in due time in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution,” the decree stated.
“This Presidential Decree comes into force immediately.”
The order referred to the “seriousness” of the shootout between members of the Presidential Palace Battalion and the National Guard which started when the former tried to rearrest two ministers released from custody while being investigated for alleged corruption.
Guinea-Bissau National Guard soldiers freed two members of the government who were being questioned by the police on last Thursday night. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Souleiman Seidi, and the Secretary of State for the Treasury, Antonio Monteiro, had been summoned by the judiciary and then taken into custody.
The judicial police questioned the two senior officials for several hours about a withdrawal of ten million dollars from state coffers, according to the same sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Mr Seidi had been questioned by MPs about the withdrawal during a session of the National Assembly on Monday. He claimed that the withdrawal was legal and intended to support the national private sector.
According to the same sources, at around 10.00 pm on Thursday evening (the same time GMT), members of the National Guard, an army unit, exfiltrated the minister and the secretary of state from the premises of the judicial police, took them to an unknown destination and then retreated to a barracks in the Santa Luzia district, the same sources said.