By RFIPosted on 10-19-2019Modified 19-10-2019 at 02:01
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed her detailed brief on the Appeals Chamber's desk. Fatou Bensouda asks the judges to cancel the acquittal on January 15 in favor of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and former leader of the Young Patriots Charles Blé Goudé, and to conclude the miscarriage of justice.
With our correspondent in The Hague, Stéphanie Maupas
She asks the Appeals Chamber to find a miscarriage of justice. If the judges were to accept, Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé would not be innocent. They would remain subject to the possibility of another trial for the same facts, whether before the ICC, or in other jurisdictions such as Côte d'Ivoire.
To convince the Appeals Chamber, the prosecutor assures that " justice has not been done ". On form, she denounces an " unfair " procedure against the prosecutor, and highlights many irregularities in the procedure surrounding the judgment of January 15 last . On the merits, the prosecution believes that the judges " set the bar too high " by assessing the evidence, and misinterpreted the evidence.
By announcing mid-September that she would appeal the acquittals of the former president and his former minister, the prosecutor had advocated the resumption of the trial, or the conduct of a new trial. This time, she advocates concluding " the miscarriage of justice " against him. If this were the case, Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé could recover the freedom, but with the weight of possible future lawsuits.
The defense now has until December 16 to respond to the prosecution's brief.
On the same subject
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Ivory Coast: Ouattara and Ocampo, a dating story
ICC hands over Laurent Gbagbo to Belgian authorities
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