ABIDJAN, (Reuters) – Former Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo was on a flight to the Hague-based International Criminal Court yesterday to face an arrest warrant issued by the global body, his lawyer said.
The court is investigating killings, rapes and other abuses committed during a four-month conflict triggered by Gbagbo’s refusal to cede power to Alassane Ouattara after last year’s election. Ouattara’s French-backed forces deposed him in April.
Gbagbo would be the first former head of state transferred to the court, which is also pursuing Sudan’s president and investigating alleged crimes in Kenya, Libya and the Central African Republic.
Two Ivorian military officials at the airport in remote Korhogo, northern Ivory Coast, where Gbagbo had been held since his capture, said he left by helicopter for an unknown destination to be transferred onto a plane to the Netherlands.
One of the officials, neither of whom could be named, had helped take him to the helicopter.
“Yes, Gbagbo is on the plane, heading to the ICC,” Gbagbo’s lawyer Lucie Bourthoumieux told Reuters by phone from France.
“There are no official charges against him that have been indicated to us. It’s a political decision and not a judicial one against Gbagbo,” she added.
The ICC was not immediately available for comment. A spokesman had declined to comment on Bourthoumieux’s earlier report of Gbagbo’s arrest warrant.
