Charles Blé Goudé hopes for "a gesture" from the authorities to return to Ivory Coast
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The former leader of the Young Patriots is considered by his detractors and international NGOs as one of those who contributed the most to the violence during the post-election crisis of 2010-2011.
Acquitted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of crimes against humanity, the former leader of the Young Ivorian Patriots Charles Blé Goudé said on Thursday April 1 that he hoped for a gesture from the Ivorian authorities to be able to return quickly to his country, in an interview with
the France 24 channel.
Like his former mentor, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, Mr. Blé Goudé, 49, was definitively acquitted by the ICC on Wednesday March 31, but he remains under sentence of twenty years in prison by the
Ivorian justice for "complicity in murder" in the context of the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011 which left some 3,000 dead.
"I hope from the [Ivorian] power a gesture, an amnesty or a pardon (...) to ease the atmosphere, so that President Laurent Gbagbo and I can return home," said the former minister.
youth, speaking from The Hague (Netherlands) for the first time since the verdict.
“The Ivory Coast needs all of its sons.
I think I have paid enough, "he said, pleading for the" gathering of Ivorians ".
He said he had "deposited his documents at the Embassy of the Ivory Coast in The Hague a few weeks ago" to obtain a passport, adding to have "confidence in the Ivorian authorities" to deliver it to him "within days or
the weeks to come ”.
The "general of the street"
Mr. Blé Goudé fled Côte d'Ivoire after the post-election crisis of 2010-2011, which ended with the victory of President-elect Alassane Ouattara and the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo.
He was arrested in 2013 in Ghana and then transferred to the ICC in 2014, to be tried alongside Laurent Gbagbo.
Both men were acquitted in January 2019, and the ICC on Wednesday dismissed the prosecutor's appeal.
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