(ANSA) - ABIDJAN, 07 AUG - New sign of pacification in Ivory Coast, a country that is emerging from a period of severe internal conflicts and violence: President Alassane Ouattara has granted pardon to his predecessor and former rival Laurent Gbagbo, who is serving a sentenced to 20 years in prison in his country.
"To strengthen social cohesion, I signed a decree granting presidential pardon to Mr. Laurent Gbagbo", Ouattara said in a speech on the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of the independence of the Ivory Coast.
The Head of State also announced that he had asked for "the freezing of his accounts and the payment of the arrears of the annuities".
He also indicated that he signed a decree granting "conditional release" to two former military and security figures of the Laurent Gbagbo regime, convicted for their role in the 2010-2011 crisis.
They are Vice Admiral Vagba Faussignaux, former head of the Navy, and Commander Jean-Noël Abéhi, former head of the armored squadron of the gendarmerie at the Agban camp in Abidjan.
Laurent Gbagbo, 77, definitively acquitted in March 2021 of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague where he had been transferred at the end of 2011, returned to his country on 17 June 2021 with the green light of Ouattara, despite a a 20-year prison sentence for "robbery" of the Central Bank of West Africa (BCEAO) during the 2010-2011 crisis.
The crisis was born from Gbagbo's refusal to recognize Alassane Ouattara's victory in the presidential elections at the end of 2010, which had led to violence that caused approximately 3,000 deaths, until the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo in Abidjan in April 2011. (ANSA).
