Guillaume Soro targeted by a complaint in France, for "assassination" and "war crimes"

Text by: RFI Follow

A complaint was filed against Guillaume Soro in Paris this Thursday, May 7. It emanates from the lawyers of 6 people who have brought civil actions and accuse the former president of the Ivorian National Assembly of "torture, murder and war crimes" for acts committed when he was the head of the Forces Nouvelles between 2003 and 2011.

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The plaintiffs, of Ivorian and French nationality, claim that the now opponent in exile has "  sponsored the death of 5 people  " during acts to establish his leadership on the movement. Two sets of facts are contained in this complaint.

Among the complainants is IB's daughter. Ibrahim Coulibaly, killed on April 27, 2011 in Abidjan, barely more than two weeks after the victory of the Ouattara camp.
this professional soldier, self-proclaimed, popular and charismatic "general", had just taken an active part in the fall of Laurent Gbagbo at the head of the "invisible commando".

For the civil parties, it was the men of the FRCI who arrested him and then left his lifeless body in the middle of the street did so on the initiative of Guillaume Soro, his rival, who mounted the “  hunt  ” and a "  Meticulously prepared ambush  " against IB to get rid of a competitor, but also of his brother Soualio Coulibaly and Issiaka Timité. 

The other episode developed in this complaint dates from June 2004. Kassoum Bamba and Abdoulaye Doumbia are two IB loyalists. The first is executed after the takeover of the rebel camp which he heads in Bouaké, by men of Guillaume Soro according to the complainants. The second, he was identified by the UN among a hundred bodies found in a mass grave in Korhogo, where a few days earlier, clashes had opposed two factions of the new forces, that of IB, and that of Guillaume Soro , winner of this fratricidal conflict.

For the plaintiffs, there is no doubt, Guillaume Soro sponsored this violence, and has his rival IB murdered. But why file a complaint today in France? Maître Noémie Saidi-Cottier, one of the lawyers for the civil parties, assures that this dossier is not linked to the electoral calendar in Côte d'Ivoire, "  we have been working on it for months  ", specifies the lawyer. 

We were seized by victims, including a French victim, (…) and the presence of Guillaume Soro in France currently allows us to file a complaint in France, this is the reason why we are filing the complaint today. It is not the electoral calendar in Ivory Coast or the fact that it is in disgrace on the spot ...

Maître Noémie Saidi-Cottier

François Mazet

Guillaume Soro's lawyers did not wish to respond to RFI's requests.

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• Ivory Coast
• Guillaume Soro
• France
• Justice

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