The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday acquitted former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo over a wave of post-electoral violence in a stunning blow to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Judges ordered the release of the 73-year-old deposed strongman, the first head of state to stand trial at the ICC, and his former youth leader, Charles Ble Goude.
Gbagbo faced charges of crimes against humanity after 3,000 people were killed in months of clashes when he refused to accept defeat after elections in late 2010.
Photo: AFP
Gbagbo clung to power “by all means” after he was narrowly beaten by his bitter rival, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, in elections, prosecutors said.
However, head judge Cuno Tarfusser said that the ICC “by majority hereby decides that the prosecution has failed to satisfy the burden of proof to the requisite standard.”
Gbagbo and Ble Goude have been acquitted of “all charges,” he said.
“Finally there is some justice,” Gragbayou Yves, 45, a Gbagbo supporter from Paris, said in the public gallery moments after the judgement was passed.
Wild scenes also erupted in Gbagbo’s hometown in Gagnoa, with hundreds of supporters shouting “free, free” and dancing in the streets.
Assoa Adou, secretary-general of Gbagbo’s party the Ivorian Popular Front, said that the acquittal would ease political tensions rather than exacerbate them.
The “stage is set for the unity needed to regain power in 2020,” when Ivory Coast is to elect a successor to Ouattara, Adou added.
Government spokesman Sidi Tiemoko Toure reacted cautiously to the ruling, urging Ivorians to “remain compassionate toward the victims” of the 2010 to 2011 conflict, in which atrocities were blamed on both sides.
Gbagbo was captured by Ouattara’s troops, who were being aided by UN and French forces, and sent to The Hague in November 2011. His trial started in January 2016.
The judges on Tuesday said that prosecutors had failed to provide evidence of a “common plan” to keep Gbagbo in power, a policy of attacking civilians, or that speeches by Gbagbo and Ble Goude incited violence.
Their release was suspended until a fresh hearing yesterday to give the prosecution time to respond to the judgement.
The office of ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that the decision was “disappointing and unexpected,” adding that the prosecution had the right to appeal.
Gbagbo’s lawyers last year said that his case had descended into “fake reality” and should be dismissed, adding that he was now “elderly and fragile.”
Gbagbo’s lawyer Emmanuel Altit called the ruling a “victory for justice.”
However, the highly divisive case has tested the court’s avowed aim of delivering justice to the victims of the world’s worst crimes since its establishment in 2002.
The ICC has faced serious difficulties over attempts to try top politicians for crimes committed by subordinates or followers — most of them in Africa.
Last year, former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba was acquitted on appeal for crimes allegedly committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also saw charges of crimes against humanity over electoral bloodshed dropped by the ICC prosecutor in 2014.
The Gbagbo result leaves the court “bitterly bruised,” said international law expert Mark Kersten of the University of Toronto.
“It leaves serious questions about the ability of the ICC to successfully target and prosecute state actors,” he said. “It must learn from these trials and errors to be better — and meet expectations — in the very near future.”
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