AFP/Abidjan
Ivory Coast has issued international arrest warrants for firebrand youth leader Charles Ble Goude and other close aides of former president Laurent Gbagbo, the Abidjan prosecutor said yesterday. “Arrest warrants have been issued against suspects on the run,” including Ble Goude, who led Gbagbo’s Young Patriots, and former government spokesman Ahoua Don Mello, the prosecutor Simplice Kouadio Koffi told a news briefing. Ble Goude, who long supported Gbagbo during his 10 years in power, was the rabble-rousing head of the youth movement held responsible for violence in Abidjan and elsewhere against foes of the former head of state. Gbagbo’s refusal to acknowledge defeat to Alassane Ouattara in last November’s election led to a stand-off of nearly five months and finally ended with Gbagbo’s arrest in April after weeks of armed conflict in the commercial capital. Ble Goude also rallied his youth followers to attack troops from ex-colonial ruler France and the UN peacekeeping mission as the international community recognised Ouattara as the west African country’s new president. Under UN sanctions since 2006, Ble Goude has reportedly been spotted in Benin and Ghana, where several figures from the Gbago regime have gone into exile. The arrest warrants also target Gbagbo’s former industry minister Philippe Attey and the Ivory Coast’s ex-ambassador to Israel Raymond Koudou Kessie. The authorities know “very well where these people can be found”, the prosecutor added without elaborating. The Gbagbo allies are being sought in connection with an investigation into theft, misuse of public funds, pillage and damage to the public economy by the former regime. The probe led to 15 people being charged and placed in protective custody last week and six more over the past few days, the prosecutor said. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has asked judges for permission to probe alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the aftermath of the disputed presidential poll. Ouattara, who was sworn in as president in May, has promised wide-reaching investigations into the crimes committed during the country’s post-election stalemate where some 3,000 people were killed, according to UN statistics. But rights groups have accused Ouattara of pursuing selective justice by aggressively probing crimes committed by his adversaries, while ignoring the brutal conduct of his loyalists. Gbagbo, his wife Simone and 13 others affiliated with the former regime remain under house arrest in the north of country. Rights groups have recently put pressure on Ivory Coast’s new government to clarify the legal uncertainty surrounding the cases of many former Gbagbo officials who have been detained since April without charge. “There is a growing divide between the Ouattara government’s rhetoric that no one is above the law and the reality that justice appears one-sided,” the New York-based Human Rights Watch said. The UN Human Rights Council has said that investigators it sent to the country believe war crimes may have been committed by both sides. “Serious crimes such as murder and rape took place through generalised and systematic attacks,” the UN panel said, implicating both Gbagbo’s forces and fighters loyal to Ouattara.