Gendarmes sit in front of defendants, mostly soldiers, during their trial in Yopougon, Ivory Coast,  yesterday, accused of kidnapping and killing four men from the Novotel hotel in Abidjan in April 2011. The prosecution called for life sentences to be handed down to the main defendants in the case on the abduction and murder of the hotel’s manager, along with the head of Ivory Coast’s largest agro-industrial group and two other businessmen in an unexplained crime, while bloodshed raged in Abidjan between rival political factions.