The Ivorian ex-President Laurent Gbagbo has appeared at the International Criminal Court ICC to hear whether he could be tried on charges of crimes against humanity in the post election violence blamed on him in Ivory Coast.
Mr. Gbagbo faces four charges, including murder and rape, in the wake of Ivory Coast’s disputed presidential election in which he refused to step down in 2010.
Some 3,000 people were killed in violence after Mr. Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in the polls but he has vehemently insisted that he is innocent in the violence.
The trial saw presiding judge, Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi open the confirmation of charges hearing, which will decide whether there is enough evidence to try Mr. Gbagbo.
But the judge stressed that the hearing would not be ruling whether the former president was guilty or innocent.
Mr. Gbagbo’s defence lawyers argued that he was already under investigation in his own country and that the authorities there must be the right people to try him and not the ICC in The Hague.
Mr. Gbagbo, a former history professor, sat silently in the courtroom listening to the proceedings and made no comments throughout the proceedings.
Meanwhile, outside the court room, some 300 supporters of Mr. Gbagbo held a rally, demanding his immediate release saying he is being persecuted by Neo-Colonialist and imperialism.
The charges against him relate to the violence after the 2010 election when he refused to accept defeat to current Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara.
Mr. Gbagbo was then arrested in Ivory Coast by what many Africans believe to be French troops in April 2011 and later extradited to The Hague.
Many African advocates have accused former colonial power France of plotting to topple Mr. Gbagbo from power in the world’s biggest cocoa producer.
Mr. Gbagbo is the first former head of state to go on trial there, although Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Liberia’s Charles Taylor were tried by special courts in The Hague.
Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News
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