Amadou Toumani Touré

Amadou Toumani Touré (4 November 1948 – 9 November 2020), also popularly known by his initials ATT (French pronunciation: [atete]), was a Malian politician and military officer who served as Mali's head of state twice, from 1991 to 1992 as acting president and again as a democratically elected president from 2002 until he was deposed in a coup in 2012.

Touré was head of President Moussa Traoré's personal guard (and parachute regiment) when a popular revolution and a coup overthrew the regime in March 1991. Touré then arrested Traoré and led the revolution onward. He presided over a year-long military-civilian transition process that produced a new Constitution and multiparty elections, then handed power to Mali's first democratically elected president, Alpha Oumar Konaré, on 8 June 1992. Konaré promoted Touré to the rank of General.

Ten years later, after retiring from the army, Touré entered politics as a civilian and won the 2002 presidential election with a broad coalition of support. He was easily re-elected in 2007 to a second and final term. On 22 March 2012, shortly before his scheduled departure from office, disgruntled soldiers initiated a coup d'état that forced him into hiding...