Jailed Ivory Coast generals well treated, family says

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Two generals arrested by paramilitary gendarmes in Ivory Coast are being well treated and not held incommunicado, a relative of one of them said on Thursday.

"They are being held in reasonably comfortable rooms and their wives are allowed to bring them food," a relative of General Abdoulaye Coulibaly told Reuters on Thursday, after speaking by mobile telephone with Coulibaly.

Coulibaly and Lansana Palenfo, accused by ousted army ruler Robert Guei of plotting to kill him, were arrested on Wednesday.

Military prosecutor Navy Captain Ange Kessi Kouame said the two were detained in accordance with an arrest warrant issued against them on October 7.

Palenfo and Coulibaly, who were numbers two and three in the junta headed by Guei, were charged with plotting to stage a coup and kill him following an attack on his home on September 18.

The two, who had initially taken refuge at Nigeria's embassy in the main city Abidjan, came out of hiding last week after Guei was chased from power by massive street demonstrations following a presidential poll which he tried to rig.

New president Laurent Gbagbo, who won the election which ended 10 months of military rule in the West African country, has said that judicial procedures opened against the two should run their course.

Both are regarded as being close to former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, who was excluded from the poll.

Palenfo was security minister in 1992 under Ouattara, when Gbagbo was jailed for several months after members of his party were accused of acts of vandalism.

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