Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara announced Saturday that he had pardoned his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, who faced a 20-year jail term for a 2018 conviction over political unrest, IgbereTV reports
“In the interests of strengthening social cohesion, I have signed a decree granting a presidential pardon,” Ouattara said in a speech to mark the 62nd anniversary of the country’s independence.
The president said he had asked that Gbagbo’s bank accounts be unfrozen and that his life annuity be paid.
Ouattara also said he had signed a decree for the conditional release of two of Gbagbo’s closest associates, former navy chief Vagba Faussignaux and a former commander of a key gendarmerie unit, Jean-Noel Abehi, both convicted for their role in the post-election unrest.
Gbagbo was acquitted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes committed during the 2011 civil conflict that broke out after he refused to recognise Ouattara’s victory in presidential elections a year earlier.
But in 2018, an Ivorian court handed Gbagbo a 20-year term in absentia over the looting of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) during the country’s post-election crisis.
After his acquittal by the ICC, Gbagbo returned from exile in 2021 and launched a new political party, but he has kept a low profile since, despite having said he wants to remain in politics until his death.
Since his return to the country, there had been no attempt to imprison him on the basis of the 2018 conviction.
A ‘fraternal meeting’
The announcement of the pardon comes just weeks after a meeting on July 14 between Outtara, Gbagbo and another former president, Henri Konan Bedie.
Ouattara, in his speech Saturday, described that occasion as a “fraternal meeting” in which the three men had “discussed, in a friendly atmosphere, matters of the national interest and the ways and means of consolidating peace in our country”.
