Three British mining executives who had been detained by the government of Mali have been released and are “safe and well”, days after agreeing to pay $160m to settle a tax dispute.
Resolute Mining, an Australian company, said on Thursday its chief executive, Terence Holohan, and two other employees, who had been held in the country since 9 November, have been released.
The three executives, who are all Britons, were in Mali’s capital, Bamako, to hold discussions with mining and tax authorities.
They were detained at the end of a meeting with government officials held to discuss tax and other state claims that the miner had previously said were “unsubstantiated”.
The miner agreed to pay $160m to the Mali government this week to help resolve the tax dispute.
On Thursday, Resolute said Holohan and the other two employees were released from the Economic and Financial Centre of Bamako, and “all three employees are safe and well and have departed the country”.
Holohan is based in London and has also worked in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Indonesia, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Resolute, which has a goldmine in Mali, said last week that the three staff members had been treated well and were receiving support from the UK and other embassies and consulates.
Mali rewrote its mining laws last year to increase state and local ownership in the industry and extract more money from international companies.
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Negotiations with international mining companies have been fraught. In September, the government detained four local employees of Barrick Gold, the world’s second largest goldminer by market capitalisation, for four days.