IVORY COAST BARES AMNESTY FOR SIMONE GBAGBO

BIDJAN: Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) announced amnesties for around 800 people, including former first lady Simone Gbagbo who is currently behind bars, in the name of national reconciliation. Last week Ivory Coast’s Supreme Court overturned an earlier acquittal granted to Gbagbo for crimes against humanity. The wife of former president Laurent Gbagbo, in power from 2000 to 2010, will “soon be freed,” Ouattara said during a televised address to the West African nation on the eve of the country’s independence day. Simone Gbagbo has been serving a 20-year sentence handed to her in 2015 for “endangering state security”. Laurent Gbagbo has been in detention at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague for seven years. Since 2016, he has been tried for alleged crimes against humanity during post-election unrest in 2010. Among the others granted amnesties by Ouattara on Monday were former defense minister Lida Kouassi -- a key ally of Laurent Gbagbo -- who was sentenced this year to 15 years for conspiracy, and former construction minister Assoa Adou, jailed in 2017 for four years. Around 500 of those named have already been released provisionally from detention, he added. They will have their criminal records erased. The other 300 will be released “soon”, he added, without giving any dates. The question of national reconciliation in Ivory Coast, or the lack of it, has been seen by observers as a black mark against Ouattara. About 3,000 people died in the turmoil that swept Abidjan — once one of Africa’s most cosmopolitan cities — in the aftermath of the November 2010 presidential polls when Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat to bitter rival Ouattara.