The husband of a U.S. diplomat in Burkina Faso was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of sexually abusing children for a year at the couple’s U.S. Embassy-assigned residence in Ouagadougou.
Fode Sitafa Mara, 39, who also worked at the embassy there, has been charged with five counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, one count of coercion and enticement and one count of obstruction of justice.
In court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, federal prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland allege that Mara met the children, two Burkinabe girls ages 13 and 15, in the Ouagadougou neighborhood where the couple had been placed during the wife’s two-year assignment for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The girls had been friends with the American family who previously lived in the Mara’s embassy-assigned home, and similarly befriended Mara and his wife soon after their arrival in August 2022, court documents say.
The girls would later tell investigators that Mara began frequently abusing them as early as the second time they met him, according to court filings in the case, sending the girls sexually explicit messages on phones he bought them and giving them money or gifts.
Mara is scheduled to appear before a judge in U.S. District Court in Maryland on Friday for a pretrial detention hearing. The U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland has asked that Mara be held without bond because, prosecutors wrote, he is a “serious risk of flight and danger to the community” and there is a “high likelihood he will attempt to obstruct justice.”
“The defendant’s crimes are as serious as any that can be alleged,” prosecutors wrote in their motion arguing for his detainment. “They stand out even in the context of child exploitation offenses. Mr. Mara repeatedly forcibly raped two children over the course of more than a year.”
An attorney for Mara did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the U.S. State Department or U.S. AID.
Mara is a U.S. citizen who previously lived in Takoma Park, Md., according to the indictment. Federal prosecutors in the United States have jurisdiction over the case because of the location of the alleged abuse. If convicted, Mara faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison, but could go to prison for life, prosecutors said.
The alleged abuse took place from November 2022 through November 2023, prosecutors said.
American authorities were warned that Mara might be abusing the girls in October 2023, according to court documents, when a guard assigned to the couple’s embassy residence told investigators with the U.S. Embassy Regional Security Office that he and the housekeeper had seen Mara bring the girls to the home when Mara’s wife was away. The girls would stay inside with Mara, the guard said, and sometimes leave looking upset, and like they had changed clothes or taken a shower.
In a separate interview, according to court documents, the housekeeper told authorities she had seen Mara touching one of the girls and had seen him alone with them in bedrooms. On Oct. 25, 2023, the day before Mara and his wife left for a long vacation to Vietnam, security guard logs for the Maras’ embassy residence showed that Mara and one of the girls had been inside the house, alone, prosecutors allege in court documents. The housekeeper also said her quarters had been disturbed and a condom was in the toilet. The girl later told authorities that Mara had assaulted her after saying, “I want you before I travel,” according to court filings.
When Mara returned from his Vietnam vacation, investigators approached him at the U.S. Embassy, where he agreed to be interviewed and consented to authorities searching his personal and work cellphones, according to court filings from prosecutors. Investigators found sexually explicit WhatsApp messages with one of the girls, according to court documents, and eventually uncovered an internet search history on Mara’s devices related to sexually explicit material involving other girls in their early teens.
Prosecutors allege that “immediately after” his interview with investigators, Mara asked the housekeeper to tell authorities she was having an affair with him; she said she would not “lie” for him and reported the conversation to embassy security. That same day, according to court filings, Mara also brought one of the girls to his house while his wife was away. He would later take away the cellphones he bought for the girls, prosecutors said, which have not yet been found.
U.S. Attorney Erek Barron said in a statement that the case was investigated as part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Justice Department initiative launched in 2006 meant to combat child sex abuse and exploitation through partnerships between local, state and federal law enforcement. Agencies involved in the case included the Diplomatic Security Service’s Office of Special Investigation; the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Inspector General; and Homeland Security Investigations.