Niger’s military rulers said the ousted President, Mohamed Bazoum who has been imprisoned by the military since July 26, tried to escape on Thursday.

“At around three in the morning, the ousted president Mohamed Bazoum and his family, his two cooks and two security elements, tried to escape from his place of detention,” the regime’s spokesman Amadou Abdramane said on television.

The interim authorities said that Bazoum and his family, with the help of accomplices in the security forces, planned to drive a vehicle to the outskirts of the capital Niamey and catch a helicopter to Nigeria.

They had then planned to fly out on helicopters “belonging to a foreign power” towards Nigeria, he added, denouncing Bazoum’s “irresponsible attitude”.

The escape bid failed and “the main actors and some of the accomplices” were arrested, he stated in the broadcast late Thursday.

An investigation has also been launched.

In September, Bazoum’s lawyers said he filed a legal case with a court of the Economic Community of West African States against those who deposed him.

They also said they were taking his case to the UN Human Rights Council.