At least 100 people have been detained since an assassination attempt on Guinea's President Lansana Conte last week, a human rights group in the west African country said today.
"Since last Wednesday, at least 100 people have been arrested. If we take account of those we don't know about the figure must double," said Mr Thierno Maadjou Sow, president of the Guinean Organisation of Human Rights.
"It must be pointed out that in such cases, the conditions of detention are abominable," he said.
Mr Conte's convoy was attacked last Wednesday morning as he drove through an outlying suburb of the crumbling, pot-holed capital Conakry, according to government officials. Mr Conte who seized power in a coup in 1984 and is rarely seen in public, has ruled with an iron fist, surviving several coup attempts.
A senior police officer said today that they had detained suspects and were continuing their enquiry but he did not say how many people were in detention.
Guinea, which has one-third of the world's known bauxite reserves, the raw material for aluminium, has long been seen as a bulwark against instability in its neighbours Sierra Leone and Liberia, and more recently Ivory Coast.