Acquittal, innocence and lessons from Ivory Coast
On 15 January 2019, the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) acquitted Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé by a majority, stating that the prosecution had not provided evidence of all the required elements of the crimes against the accused. All eyes focused on Gbagbo because of his status as former president of Côte d'Ivoire. An immediate question was the consequences of this acquittal for his place on the Ivorian political scene.
This questioning cannot fail to recall a recent precedent in Kenya, where two major ICC defendants, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, found in the proceedings against them a motivation for their political union, and made it a powerful electoral argument.… Seguir leyendo »