Following the acquittal of crimes against humanity by former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, the International Criminal Court (ICC) will hold hearings from Monday June 22 to examine the request for an appeal hearing made by his prosecutor.

Fatou Bensouda appealed in September 2019 against the acquittal pronounced in January of the same year against the former Ivorian president and one of his relatives, Charles Blé Goudé.

The appeal must demonstrate that the trial chamber committed errors of law and procedure that resulted in acquittal for all of the charges, the prosecutor said.

Not guilty of crimes against humanity

The two men were found not guilty of crimes against humanity committed in 2010 and 2011 during the post-electoral violence in Côte d'Ivoire, which left 3,000 people dead. They were released on conditions in February 2019.

The prosecutor of the Court, founded in 2002 to try the worst atrocities committed in the world, considers that the judges acquitted them without formulating correctly and without consistently applying a clearly defined standard of proof.

This week's hearing will be "partially virtual," the ICC said, due to the current situation with the Covid-19. It is not clear whether the acquitted will be physically present or if they will attend the proceedings by videoconference. The judges will then decide at a "later stage" whether an appeal trial should take place.

Prosecutor in turmoil

The stake is important for the office of Fatou Bensouda, already weakened by the acquittal of Laurent Gbagbo and the former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, acquitted in 2018 of war crimes and crimes against humanity after have spent almost a decade in detention.

In addition, the ICC is currently the target of virulent attacks on the part of the American president Donald Trump, who announced economic sanctions against members of the jurisdiction - including Fatou Bensouda - to dissuade her from prosecuting American soldiers for their implication in the conflict in Afghanistan.

Recently, ICC judges denied a request for unconditional release by Laurent Gbagbo, 75, who spent seven years in detention in The Hague before being acquitted. However, they relaxed the conditions of his parole.

The ex-president is now authorized to leave Belgium, where he was under house arrest since his acquittal, provided that any country he wishes to go to accepts beforehand to receive him. The political party he founded, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), called on President Alassane Ouattara for "dialogue" in order to allow his return to the country.

Quickly, an association of victims of the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011 expressed its "energetic opposition" to a possible return of the former president to Côte d'Ivoire.

With AFP

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