THE IVORY COAST:LAURENT GBAGBO'S PLANNED RELEASE POLITICAL
BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKU[LAGOS,NIGERIA]
The news of the planned release recently of Former Ivorian
President Laurent Gbagbo from detention by The International Criminal Courts of
Justice at the Hague ,Netherlands less than a week after this medium had
accused the courts of now being a ready- made tool for playing political games
,this medium can now say for sure that the United Nations agency was now thrown
into a credibility crisis situation.
Checks by The News office Desk of the E.N.M.Paedia Express
Multimedia Group of Lagos,Nigeria showed that the recent invitation to the
Hague, Netherlands by President Muhammadu Buhari which has seen this medium
raise her weight and voice while protesting its decisions not to investigate the volatile
extreme regions of Northern Nigeria on account of lies and deliberate acts of
sabotage by The Nigerian Presidency ,Military High Command, Traditional
Rulers,Religious leaders and the media has now being turned into a much larger
political circus game in a very clear attempt at a cover up affair now believed to being instigated by
the United States,France among other western interests.
This reporter had followed the Ivorian civil war which he
had reported for the Pan African Journal,The Difference Newspapers as its
investigations and General Editor .
He had authored reports of how France had being ripping off
each of its colony in Africa of 2/3 of their resources as it laid a strangle
hold on all them despite being supposed to be independent nations on an
individual basis.
It would be recalled that in the stand-off that led to the
civil war that engulfed the Ivory Coast also fondly called as Cote
D"Ivoire in Francophone circles ,Laurent Gbagbo had been a darling of the
imperialists until he told a shocked Western audience that he wanted his people
to control their resources and this was what made them to shift their support
overnight to a carefully selected appointee from the International Monetary
Fund [I.M.F.],Mr Alassane Ouattara who was to play to the dictates of France
and other western forces.
The music the west allowed the world to hear during the
course of the crisis was that Gbagbo did not win but declared himself as the
winner but the fact is if he was their man they would have looked the other way
Gbagbo's planned release at a time when this medium had
given a hint of a possible bad press for the I.C.C. suggests a carefully woven
acts of fraud to cover up.
A source who related the news of the release to this
reporter was shell shocked when this reporter linked the planned release of the
Former Ivorian strongman to Buhari's recent visit to the Hague and the fact
that the body was now a rubber stamp agency of some power elite and no longer interested
in dispensing true justice,equity and fairness.
According to latest news monitored on Al Jazeera and the wire agency: Associated Press of
France there were plans being made by
The International Criminal Courts of Justice at The Hague to release Former
Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo as at press time.
Laurent Gbagbo, 72, is charged with
crimes against humanity following election violence that killed around 3,000
people.
Gbagbo declared himself winner of
the 2010 election, but France, the US and the UN said victory belonged to his
rival Ouattara [AP]
War crimes judges will rule whether
former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo can be released from prison for
the rest of his trial on charges arising from deadly election violence in 2010.
Gbagbo, the first ex-head of state
to be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC), has appealed a March decision that he must
stay behind bars in a UN detention centre until the end of the legal process.
A five-judge appeals court will
"deliver its judgement" on the appeal at 1430 GMT on Wednesday, the
court said in a statement.
Both Gbagbo, now 72, and his former
militia leader Charles Ble Goude, 45, have pleaded not guilty to four charges
of crimes against humanity including murder, rape, and persecution in five
months of bloodshed that wracked the Ivory Coast.
Ivory Coast descended into
civil war in 2011 after Gbagbo's refusal to accept defeat to Alassane Ouattara
in a presidential runoff election.
About 3,000 people were killed in
the conflict.
Gbagbo's highly divisive trial
at the tribunal in The Hague opened in January 2016.
Gripping
power 'by all means'
ICC prosecutors accuse him of trying
to cling to power "by all means", while his defence team has charged
that Ouattara seized power by force with the help of former colonial rulers, France.
After a months-long standoff, Gbagbo
was arrested by Ouattara's troops aided by United Nations and French forces, and turned over
to the ICC in 2011.
In March, his defence team made a
new bid to win Gbagbo's release, arguing he "has already been detained for
almost six years and has pathologies that affect his physical and psychological
wellbeing".
The prosecution said the former
Ivorian leader still enjoyed a strong network of support and if he were freed
"could abscond to a territory out of the reach of the court".
In a majority two-to-one decision,
the judges ruled he had to stay in jail.
But in a dissenting opinion - which
Gbagbo's defence has seized on - judge Cuno Tarfusser said his detention
"has exceeded the threshold of a reasonable duration and that, in light of
his age and health, the risk that he might abscond from justice becomes
increasingly unlikely".
Rights activists thought it was
unlikely he would be freed. Carrie Comer of the Federation International for Human Rights (FIDH) said her organisation shared
concerns that Gbagbo "was a flight risk" and highlighted "the
sheer gravity of the crimes that he is accused of".
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