Ivory Coast: what facts are alleged against Guillaume Soro in the complaint filed in France?

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A complaint was filed against Guillaume Soro in Paris this Thursday. The former president of the National Assembly is accused of "torture, murder and war crimes" for acts committed when he was the head of the Forces Nouvelles between 2003 and 2011.

Publicity

Two sets of facts are contained in this complaint  : the massacres committed in Bouaké and Korogho in 2004 during battles between rebel factions pro-Soro and pro-IB and the death of Ibrahima Koulibaly, known as IB, "self-proclaimed general" and rival of Guillaume Soro at the head of the rebellion on April 27, 2011, barely more than two weeks after the fall of Laurent Gbagbo. A death whose circumstances remain uncertain.

Indeed, at the end of April 2011, Abidjan is a city still shaken by several months of fighting. IB took its share in the fall of the former president. After his return, a year earlier from an exile forced by his rivalry with Guillaume Soro, he led a veritable guerrilla war against the men of Laurent Gbagbo at the head of the "invisible commando" which operates mainly in Abobo.

It is also in this popular commune of Abidjan, in the PK18 district, that IB land has been in the last days. This April 27, while the FRCI, the Republican Forces of Côte d'Ivoire, take control of Abobo, IB testified to an attack on Radio Voice of America: " It is the New Forces that attack me, c is Soro attacking me . "

Shedding light on this death

Several men are killed on the spot. There are in particular his brother Soualio Koulibaly and Issiaka Timité, whose relatives are also civil parties in this new complaint. IB was allegedly taken, according to the complainants, in "  motorized vehicles  " before his body was found lying in his blood the same evening.

His relatives say he was looking to surrender and that he had informed the United Nations and the French force of an imminent danger. A "  hunt  " and a "  meticulously prepared ambush  " against him, said the complaint filed Thursday. The Ministry of Defense, then occupied by Guillaume Soro, told him that IB was killed during a " response " when he refused to surrender to the new Ivorian army. The exact circumstances of IB's death therefore remain to be established and for the civil parties, this is one of the objectives of this new legal process.

Charges totally swept aside by the defense of Guillaume Soro. One of his lawyers, Maître Robin Binsard, believes that this was an "  attempt to discredit the candidacy of Guillaume Soro  " during the Ivorian presidential election, scheduled for next October.

These facts do not stand up and we object against these accusations.

Robin Binsard, lawyer for Guillaume Soro

François Mazet

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• Ivory Coast
• Justice
• France
• Guillaume Soro

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