Guinea junta won't let detained ex-president leave

Guinea's junta leaders insisted on Saturday during a news conference, that President Alpha Conde would remain in the country and that only Guinean people, as opposed to ECOWAS, will decide about their future.

Speaking to journalists in Conakry about the meeting that military rulers had with the ECOWAS delegation on Friday, Col. Amara Camara said they had alerted the West African group that Guineans would decide their own destiny.

Earlier this week, the bloc said they expected a quick transition, with elections organized in 6 months to restore "constitutional order" in the country.

ECOWAS also pressed ahead with targeted sanctions, and put travel bans into effect for the leaders of the Sept. 5 coup and their families, also freezing their financial assets.

Camara dismissed this saying, "we are soldiers and the mission for us is in Guinea"

The new Guinean authorities also shot down rumors that their West African neighbors were negotiating a way for Conde to leave the country.

ECOWAS and other members of the international community have called for Conde's immediate release ever since he was detained in the Sept. 5 coup that overthrew him after more than a decade in power.