Credit: © ICC-CPI / On 28 January 2016, the trial in the case of The Prosecutor v. Laurent Gbagbo (above)  and Charles Blé Goudé opened at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, before Trial Chamber I.

By Gary Raynaldo

The International Criminal Court (ICC)  is scheduled to rule next week on whether to release former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo  during his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Gbagbo, 73, has spent seven years in detention at The Hague-based war tribunal.  The ICC said it will deliver its decision Tuesday January 15, 2019 at 11:00 (The Hague local time) on Gbagbo’s request for provisional release; and no case to answer motions for Gbagbo’s co-defendant Charles Blé Goudé.  Gbagbo and Blé Goudé are accused of four counts of crimes against humanity (murder, rape, attempted murder, and persecution) allegedly committed in the context of post-electoral violence in  Côte d’Ivoire between 16 December 2010 and 12 April 2011. Their trial opened on Jan. 28, 2016. Both Gbagbo and Blé Goudé pleaded not guilty.  Gbabgo also requested the ICC to acquit him on grounds that there is not enough evidence to proceed with the trial. Gbagbo, 73, is the first-ever head of state to be handed over to the ICC.  Some see Gbagbo’s arrest and trial as evidence of the ICC’s alleged bias against African leaders.

Credit: © ICC-CPI  / Charles Blé Goudé at his Initial Appearance before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC on March 20, 2014. 

Some 3,000 people lost their lives in the crisis, after Gbagbo refused to concede victory to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, Ivory Coast’s current president.   Blé  Goude was the head of the Young Patriots, an organisation of Gbagbo loyalists that was blamed for a campaign of violence against those seen as Ouattara’s supporters