Laurent Gbagbo, acquitted by the International Criminal Court of crimes against humanity, was released on February 1, 2019 under conditions. – AFP
The old one Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro saw their appeals challenging their deletion from the electoral rolls rejected by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), AFP told the CIS and those around them on Friday.
“The decisions have been posted since the 18th, the CEI did not grant their requests,” Inza Kigbafori told AFP. The CEI communications manager thus referred to the cases of Gbagbo and Soro but also those of the former leader of the Young Patriots, Charles Blé Goudé, and the opponent Akossi Bendjo, who had denounced their absence from the list. election of the presidential election of October 31.
Acquitted by the ICC but sentenced in Côte d’Ivoire
“They have three days to go to court, which has five days to rule on their requests,” he continued, stressing that nearly 400 people had been struck off the lists. “Anyone sentenced for an offense or a crime to deprivation of their civil rights was removed from the lists during the revision”, explained Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, the president of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) during the presentation of the revision of the electoral list in early August.
Relatives of the four men, who live abroad, had seized the CEI by noting their absence from the electoral lists posted in the polling stations. “Our request was rejected for ” ill-founded request. ” We will go to court. This is the only thing left for us to do. The right to vote is an important right, ”Kaweli Ouattara, a close friend of Guillaume Soro and mayor of Ferkessédougou, the stronghold of the former rebel leader, told AFP. The four men were all sentenced by the Ivorian courts.
Amnesty request
Acquitted at first instance by the International Criminal Court, Laurent Gbagbo lives in Brussels awaiting a possible appeal, but he was sentenced by the Ivorian courts to 20 years in prison for the “robbery” of the Central Bank of the States of ‘West Africa during the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011.
The former first lady of Côte d’Ivoire, Simone Gbagbo, on August 11 asked Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara to “grant amnesty” to her husband Laurent. “The arguments used to justify the removal of Laurent Gbagbo’s name from the electoral list are very questionable legal arguments. Moreover, the trial which led to this conviction is itself political and unjustifiable, ”Ms. Gbagbo indicated.
Former Prime Minister, Guillaume Soro, who declared himself a presidential candidate, was sentenced by the Ivorian justice to 20 years in prison for “concealment of embezzlement of public funds” and is the subject of a procedure for ” attempted insurrection ”.
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