FREELANCE journalist Antonio Aly Silva has accused “political powers” of being behind his kidnap and torture ordeal in Guinea-Bissau in which he had his tongue sliced.

Mr Silva, a supporter of opposition candidate Domingos Simoes Pereira in the controversial 2019 presidential elections, said that he was taken by unidentified men on Tuesday and subjected to horrific beatings.

But he said that he would not be deterred from his work.

“I have pain all over my body, I didn’t sleep at night. My head is all sore, my jaw, I can’t eat, I just drank milk. 

“They cut my tongue, at least they didn’t cut it all, but there is a part that lifts,” he said from the private clinic where he is receiving treatment.

He warned that Guinea-Bissau was a country of terror and it wouldn’t be long “until we start pulling bodies from the gutter.”

In 2019 Mr Pereira won the first round of polling, taking just over 40 per cent of the votes. The incumbent president Jose Mario Vaz finished fourth pitting Mr Pereira against Umaro Sissoco Embalo in a second-round run-off.

Those results were contested, but Mr Embalo claiming victory with 54 per cent of the vote compared with 26 per cent for Mr Pereira. 

Neither the country’s Supreme Court nor parliament approved the result, with Mr Embalo arranging his own swearing-in ceremony. 

Prime Minister Aristides Gomes was among those who accused Mr Embalo of organising a coup, a claim also made by Mr Silva in his blog “Dictatorship of Consensus.”

He insists the power grab was orchestrated with the backing of the international community and slammed the silence of the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres.

Mr Embalo has yet to comment despite the accusations.