What to know about the pro-Russian activist arrested in South Africa and wanted in Benin

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A pro-Russian activist accused of backing a failed coup in Benin appeared in court Wednesday in South Africa over separate charges of attempting to illegally leave that country with the help of a member of a far-right white nationalist group.

Kémi Séba, a prominent Beninese influencer, faces charges of conspiracy to commit a crime and immigration violations. He also faces extradition to Benin, where he was declared wanted for “inciting rebellion” after publicly backing a failed coup there last December.

Séba, whose legal name is Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi, was born in France to Beninese parents but was stripped of his French citizenship.

He remains in custody after a judge Wednesday postponed a bail hearing to May 11.

Here’s what to know about the activist:

A pro-Russian activist with millions of followers

Séba, who has some 1.5 million followers on Facebook, is the leader of Pan-Africanist Emergency, a group he founded in 2015 that describes itself as a “Black rights organization, specializing in issues related to sovereignty, neocolonialism and the promotion of social justice.”

He has also built a large following on social media using viral videos that attack France’s political and economic influence in Africa while advocating for the military juntas who seized power in the region mostly on the back of anti-French sentiments.

He has often been accused of pushing Russian propaganda in Africa, but he defends his activities as “pan-African.” Séba has publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and aligned himself with pro-Russian networks tied to late Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to the U.S. State Department.

Séba has also met with Russian authorities on several occasions. He has denied accusations of being a Russian agent.

France convicted him multiple times for inciting racial hatred and he was stripped of his French citizenship in 2024. Shortly after, he was issued a diplomatic passport by Niger’s military junta, which made him a “special adviser” to the country’s leader, Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani.

Alleged support for coup attempt in Benin

Beninese authorities in December declared Séba wanted after he posted a video supporting soldiers who had tried to topple the government of Benin’s President Patrice Talon. The coup collapsed within hours after loyalist forces, backed by Nigerian fighter jets and regional troops, intervened.

Séba celebrated the coup attempt in his country of citizenship as it unfolded. In a video that later went viral, he called it “the day of liberation” and praised the mutineers as “patriotic.” Benin issued an international arrest warrant for him on Dec. 12, charging him with inciting rebellion.

When he was arrested earlier this month, South African police issued a statement noting that the activist “is indeed a wanted fugitive in Benin in relation to crimes against the state.”

Caught trying to flee, with a white nationalist’s help

Séba was arrested alongside his son and a far-right South African activist during a sting operation at a Pretoria shopping center. The police said they foiled a purported plan for them to illegally cross the border into neighboring Zimbabwe and eventually reach Europe.

The man accused of arranging that crossing was François van der Merwe, a member of the Bittereinders — a South African far-right group that advocates for the creation of a whites-only Afrikaner and Boer state and says it rejects multiculturalism. He was accused of accepting roughly R250,000 ($15,000) to facilitate Séba’s cross-border movements.

The alliance between the self-described African liberation activist and a far-right white nationalist activist may be less surprising than it appears, analysts say.

Christophe Premat, a political scientist at Stockholm University, says Séba has long embraced “ethno-differentialism,” a belief in strict racial separation that he shares, from opposite ends, with the Bittereinders.

The Kremlin has also in recent years courted South African far-right groups, including those claiming to defend Afrikaner and Boer identity, according to Burgert Senekal, a research fellow at the University of the Free State in South Africa, who studied Russian information operations in the country.

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