Ivory Coast: Guillaume Soro sentenced to life imprisonment for “undermining the security of the State”

Published on : 06/23/2021 – 3:30 PMModified : 06/23/2021 – 4:07 PM

The sentence fell in the absence of the accused, who lives in exile. The former Ivorian Prime Minister and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro was sentenced, Wednesday, June 23 in Abidjan, to life imprisonment for “endangering state security” for acts committed at the end of 2019.

The Assize Court of Abidjan followed the requisitions of the prosecution, as for the main other defendants, Souleymane Kamagaté, former chief of protocol of Guillaume Soro, Affoussy Bamba, former minister, and Touré Moussa, his former head of the communication, sentenced to 20 years in prison, noted an AFP journalist.

Two of Guillaume Soro’s brothers and his former right-hand man, Alain Lobognon, were sentenced to 17 months in prison for “disturbing public order”.

“Subversive acts”

The court also ordered the confiscation of the property of Guillaume Soro and his 19 co-convicts, as well as the dissolution of his movement, Generations and Solidarity Peoples (GPS), accused of engaging in “subversive acts”. It ordered the condemned to pay jointly one billion CFA francs (150 million euros) to the Ivorian state.

“For him, it will be life imprisonment,” President Alassane Ouattara said in October about Guillaume Soro, his former ally.

The former Prime Minister and former President of the National Assembly was accused of having fomented with his supporters a “civil and military insurrection” aimed at overthrowing power during his abortive return to Côte d’Ivoire in December 2019, ten months before the presidential election of October 2020.

Guillaume Soro, 49, who lives in exile, and his co-defendants were accused of “conspiracy”, “attempt to attack the authority of the State” as well as “dissemination and publication of false news discrediting the institutions and their functioning, resulting in an attack on the morale of the populations “.

Conviction passed

Leader of the rebellion which controlled the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire in the 2000s, Guillaume Soro militarily helped Alassane Ouattara to gain power during the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011 against outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to admit defeat at the polls.

After the victory, Guillaume Soro became the first head of government of Alassane Ouattara, then was appointed president of the National Assembly in 2012, a position he held until 2019.

But the two men gradually fell out, until the rupture consumed in early 2019, due, according to observers, to the presidential ambitions of Guillaume Soro.

In April 2020, the latter Soro had already been sentenced to 20 years in prison for concealment of embezzlement of public funds for having tried, according to the justice, to appropriate a residence purchased by the State to house him when he was Premier minister. This conviction had justified the invalidation a few months later of his presidential candidacy.

With AFP