Ivory Coast has charged 12 more allies of former president Laurent Gbagbo, including his son and party chief, with rebelling against the state in a deadly post-vote dispute, an official said on Wednesday.
They are among dozens of people rounded up with Gbagbo on April 11 in a dramatic end to a conflict rooted in his refusal to accept he had lost November elections last year to Alassane Ouattara, now installed as president.
The charges include “attacks on national defense” and “plotting against state authority,” rebellion, setting up armed groups and taking part in an insurrection movement, prosecution spokesman Noel Dje said.
They take to 38 the number of Gbagbo supporters to be formally charged after the conflict in the world’s leading cocoa producer that left about 3,000 people dead.
Allegations of serious crimes including mass killings and rape have been made against both camps in the conflict, although no charges have been laid against those who backed Ouattara.
Among the latest to be charged are Michel Gbagbo, the former president’s son who has French and Ivorian nationality, and the head of his Ivorian Popular Front party, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, Dje said.
The others are five people under house arrest in Bouna in the northeast of the country and five at central Katiola, including the former head of a pro-Gbagbo women’s group and ex-minister Jean-Jacques Bechio.
The 26 already indicted include former prime minister Gilbert Ake N’Gbo and several former ministers.
Laurent Gbagbo and his wife Simone, under house arrest in different locations, have yet to be charged.
Gbagbo’s lawyer on Wednesday slammed the conditions in which his client is being held as “a form of torture.”
“He is locked up 24 hours a day in a dimly-lit and shuttered room. He has no personal effects ... and has been forced to sleep in the same clothes and same sheets” for four months, lawyer Emmanuel Altit said in a statement.
Rights groups and the UN have alleged that forces backing both Gbagbo and Ouattara committed war crimes and crimes against humanity and both sides should face justice.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked to be allowed to carry out its own investigations.
Government spokesman Bruno Kone, speaking after a Cabinet meeting, said the “blood crimes” would be principally dealt with by the ICC, citing the “complexity” of the cases.
Ivory Coast courts have also issued several international arrest warrants for Gbagbo allies, including for former minister Charles Ble Goude, the firebrand leader of the Young Patriots group that had a large hand in the violence.
Western-backed Ouattara, sworn into office in May, has stressed he wants to promote reconciliation after the crisis but Gbagbo loyalists have insisted their former boss must first be freed.
At celebrations last weekend of the 51st anniversary of independence from France, Ouattara extended a hand to supporters of Gbagbo, especially those who fled to Ghana, saying “their place is with us” and calling for unity.
But his statement was met with suspicion.
Ouattara’s actions are “unlikely to reassure us on his sincerity,” Adou Assoa, spokesman for the exiled branch of the former ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), said in a statement.
“With one hand he invites us to return to Ivory Coast and with the other he formally indicts our comrades who are unjustly jailed, while international arrest warrants are also being issued against the Gbagbo camp,” he said.
Assoa said a pre-requisite to any return of senior FPI officials to Ivory Coast was “the release of all brothers who are unjustly imprisoned,” including the former president and his wife.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not