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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo freed by war crimes court |
| 2019-02-02 |
| [CAPITALFM.CO.KE] The International Criminal Court finally freed former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo ... Former President-for-Life of Ivory Coast from 2000 to 2011. Laurent lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and he refused to vacate the presidential palace. French troops assisted the Oattara forces in extricating him from his Fuhrerbunker... on Friday after his shock acquittal last month on charges of crimes against humanity. Supporters sang and waved flags in the Hague after judges agreed to release the 73-year-old on condition that he stays in an as-yet-unnamed country pending an appeal by the prosecution. Gbagbo, the first former head of state ever to stand trial at the ICC, and his aide Charles Ble Goude were cleared on January 15 over a wave of violence after disputed elections in the west African nation in 2010. More than 3,000 people died on both sides after Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to his internationally backed-rival ‐ and now-president ‐ Alassane Ouattara ...the former president-for-life of Ivory Coast. He actually beat his predecessor in an election before having to eject him from the presidential palazzo.... ICC appeals judge Chile Eboe-Osuji said the court would release Gbagbo "to a state willing to accept them on its territory and willing to enforce the conditions set" by the court. Ivory Coast is an ICC member state, but the court may be unwilling to send Gbagbo to his homeland, given that it has refused to surrender Gbagbo’s wife Simone despite an outstanding ICC warrant for her arrest. Lawyers have previously cited the arrangement reached with former DR Congo warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba, who went to Belgium after he was cleared by the ICC last year. |
| Posted by:Fred |