War crimes trial president ‘orchestrated gang rape and murder to cling to power’

Former president Laurent Gbagbo orchestrated “unspeakable violence”, including murder and gang rape by his supporters, to cling to power after losing an election in Ivory Coast, war crimes prosecutors alleged on Thursday. The 70-year-old and his inner circle were accused of targeting Muslims and people of other ethnicities who they assumed had supported election victor Alessane Ouattara. Among his victims was a witness who was arrested at a pro-Ouattara rally and subjected, along with other women, to three days of gang rapes by armed gendarmes, said prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Seven people were killed when state security agents opened fire from an armoured car on a demonstration in a marketplace in an immigrant-heavy neighbourhood of the capital Abidjan, she added.

Cote d'Ivoire succumbed to chaos and was subjected to unspeakable violence. Gbagbo never intended to leave office

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda

Four months of conflict ravaged Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa grower and seen as a beacon of stability in a troubled region, after Gbagbo refused to step down in early 2011. About 3,000 people were killed and the fighting ended only when former colonial power France intervened militarily, allowing Mr Ouattara to take office. At his war crimes trial in The Hague, Gbagbo and his co-accused, youth leader Charles Ble Goude, 44, denied all the charges. Gbagbo’s supporters, hundreds of whom were demonstrating outside the courthouse on Thursday, say he is a victim of neo-colonial meddling by France and accuse prosecutors of ignoring alleged crimes by Mr Ouattara’s camp. "We want him released,“ said one demonstrator, Paris-based Ivorian Michele, dismissing Mr Ouattara as a "rebel chief” who had been helped by France to usurp power.

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