Ivorian militia chief tells ICC he was peaceful

Ivorian ex-president's right-hand man Charles Ble Goude raises his fist as he enters the courtroom of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his initial appearance in The Hague, on March 27, 2014. Goude's lawyer told the ICC on Tuesday that his client was a “man of peace,” in the same mould as US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, and tried to stop post-polls turmoil in 2010. PHOTO | MICHAEL KOOREN |  AFP

In Summary

• “Charles Ble Goude never ordered the violence,” lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops told judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) where his client and Cote d’Ivoire’s former president Laurent Gbagbo are on trial for crimes against humanity.
• Ble Goude was “even considered to be too pacifist, like Martin Luther King,” said Mr Knoops, referring to the 1960s American civil rights icon.
• Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ble Goude - a former youth militia leader known for his fiery rhetoric - have denied four counts including murder, rape and persecution after some 3,000 people were killed in five months of bloodshed in the west African nation from late 2010 until April 2011.

By AFP
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THE HAGUE, Tuesday

Former Ivorian youth militia boss Charles Ble Goude denied on Tuesday any role in deadly post-poll violence that ravaged his country in 2010 and 2011, saying he had “no blood” on his hands.

“When it comes to my fellow citizens, I do not have a single drop of blood on my hands,” Ble Goude told the International Criminal Court, where he and ex-president Laurent Gbagbo face charges of crimes against humanity arising from the bloodshed in the west African nation.

Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ble Goude - a former youth militia leader known for his fiery rhetoric - have denied four counts including murder, rape and persecution after some 3,000 people were killed in five months of bloodshed in the west African nation from late 2010 until April 2011.

Their landmark trial opened on Thursday at the court based in The Hague and is set to last three to four years.

CONTROVERSIAL ELECTIONS

Mr Gbagbo declared himself the winner of the November 2010 elections, but major powers including France, the former colonial power, the United States and the United Nations backed his bitter rival Alassane Ouattara, who had snatched a narrow victory.

The row triggered a bitter standoff that saw Gbagbo holed up in the fortified presidential palace and Abidjan - the country’s main city and commercial capital - turned into a war zone.

Prosecutors accuse Mr Ble Goude, 44 - dubbed Mr Gbagbo’s “General of the Streets” because of his powerful rhetoric - of ordering his “Young Patriots” militia to murder, rape and burn alive hundreds of people during the crisis.

(READ: France ‘aided’ Ouattara to take power by force)

But Mr Knoops said the exact opposite was true.

“Mr Ble Goude tried to calm down the population, he did not endorse the violence,” he told the court.

Lawyers played a video showing Mr Ble Goude accompanied by well-known American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, to boost their contention that he was a man of peace.

Mr Knoops told a three-judge bench that there was “a major difference between a person who uses his rhetoric abilities to call for liberation and a person who uses his rhetoric abilities to get control,” as prosecutors have suggested. “He was no General of the Streets,” Mr Knoops said.

After Gbagbo’s fall, Mr Ble Goude was arrested in January 2013 in Ghana having been on the run for more than 18 months and was transferred to the ICC in 2014.

He was expected to address the world’s only permanent war crimes court later on Wednesday.

ICC TRIAL

Gbagbo became the first ex-head of state to go on trial at the ICC and chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda painted a vivid picture of five months of turmoil saying “the Cote d’Ivoire descended into chaos and was the theatre of unspeakable violence.”

Ms Bensouda alleged on Thursday that Gbagbo, aided by the military, police and a youth militia group organised by Ble Goude, had clung to power by “all means necessary” as part of an orchestrated plan.

But Gbagbo's lawyer Emmanuel Altit countered on Monday there had been a deliberate campaign to make Gbagbo “out to be some kind of demon” and “paint Ouattara as the good guy.”

“This is nothing more than a political narrative that has been heated up and re-served.”

Defence lawyer Dov Jacobs added: “It has been shown that the prosecution has twisted the truth” by not contextualising the violence.

“It has deprived the Ivory Coast of part of its natural history,” Jacobs added.

“Perhaps someone wants us to forget” alleged abuses committed by pro-Ouattara forces, Altit said, adding that even before the elections Ouattara had been recruiting mercenaries in neighbouring Burkina Faso, where preparations for the assault on Abidjan were made.

FRENCH INVOLVEMENT

“The plans for military action had been drawn up by the plotters and schemers in cooperation with French military leaders during the entire crisis,” he said.

He added that French military aircraft also delivered heavy weapons to pro-Ouattara combatants.

If the two men are convicted, the maximum penalty is usually up to 30 years in prison.

Judges can impose a life sentence if they find “extreme gravity” in the case.

Prosecutors are focusing on four specific incidents triggered in the world’s top cocoa producer, once held up as a beacon of democracy in a troubled continent.

Altit regretted that no French witnesses had been called by the prosecution, saying only they “have the information needed to get” to the truth of what happened.

The ICC has been repeatedly accused by some African countries of unfairly targeting them.

Several continental heads of state on Sunday backed a Kenyan proposal to pull out of the ICC on the ground that it is biased at an African Union summit.