Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo appears before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands March 31, 2021. ICC-CPI/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT

Ex- Ivory Coast President to return home on June 17

On Jun 1, 2021

Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo plans to return home on June 17 following his acquittal on charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, his party said.

Gbagbo’s return could be complicated by an outstanding 20 year sentence given to him in absentia in November 2019 by an Ivorian court for misappropriating funds from the regional central bank.

In April President Alassane Ouattara said ’’Gbango was free to return from the Hague’’ but did not say whether Gbagbo had been pardoned.

The leader of a pro-Gbagbo party, Assoa Adou, announced the date of the former President’s home-coming in front of a crowd that had come to celebrate Gbagbo’s birthday in Abidjan.

Gbagbo, who turned 76 on Monday, served as president from 2000 until his arrest in 2011, after his refusal to concede electoral defeat to Ouattara. Post-election violence spiralled into a civil war that claimed the lives of 3,000 people.

On March 31 the ICC upheld a 2019 decision which ruled prosecutors had failed to present enough evidence to prove their case against Gbagbo and Charles Ble Goude, a former youth leader and one of his aides.

Olusola Akintonde/Reuters