Togo, 2009 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 17 April 2009, corresponding to the alleged April 2009 coup plot against President Faure Gnassingbe of Togo, centered on his half-brother Kpatcha Gnassingbe. On 17 April 2009 the president denounced on state television a coup attempt that he said had been planned to be staged while he was away on a working visit to China, a trip he cancelled after a foreign country's security services warned that an attack was imminent. His half-brother Kpatcha, a former defence minister from 2005 to 2007 and a ruling-party heavyweight with strong contacts in the armed forces, was named a principal organizer amid a bitter rivalry that had grown between the brothers since the 2005 death of their father, the longtime ruler Gnassingbe Eyadema.
On the night of 12 April, elite troops raided Kpatcha's home in Lome, triggering a gunfight from which he escaped, and he was arrested on 15 April at the gates of the United States embassy, where he had sought refuge. In September 2011 the Supreme Court sentenced Kpatcha to 20 years and 32 others to a range of terms, though defence lawyers disputed the evidence. The 17 April 2009 coding matches the president's public denunciation of the plot.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
46104172009
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Faure Gnassingbe put down the alleged plot and jailed his half-brother.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Modern Ghana
France 24
Reuters
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →