Background
He was born in 1927 at Diarakourou, near Kankan, in Central Guinea.
He was born in 1927 at Diarakourou, near Kankan, in Central Guinea.
He was educated at the Kankan Higher Primary School and at the Bamako Higher Technical College. A civil servant with the former French West Africa administration in 1954 he was successively a clerk in Kankan, a tax-collector in Abidjan, and administrative head in the Adzope area, in the Ivory Coast.
In March 1952 Diakité ran for election in Kankan on the RDA platform, while Sékou Touré ran for the forest region. Both men lost. After Touré became first President of Guinea after independence in 1958, Diakite held a number of cabinet posts, serving as minister of banking, security and internal affairs, finance and housing. As Minister-Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Guinea in 1962 he was involved in negotiations with the United States of America over guarantees for foreign investors. He became a member of the tight-knit group of close relatives who supported President Sékou Touré and who became the primary beneficiaries of the regime.
Considered by many as President Toure’s most capable “front man", he was put in charge of the National Bank at a time when Guinea’s monetary policies were mostly decided at the President’s palace. Despite his recent appointment as head of all security matters, the feared Siaka Toure, chief of the notorious political police, still reports directly to the Presidency and not to Diakite, his own Minister.
He was a member of the Commission of Inquiry at Camp Boiro, where he conducted the secret investigation followed by the execution of Diallo Telli in 1972. In May 1972, as Minister of the Interior and Security and member of the National Politbureau he was among leaders who welcomed Fidel Castro of Cuba on his visit to Guinea. Diakite was arrested on 3 April 1984, one week after Touré's death. He was executed after the attempted coup by Diarra Traoré in July 1985.