Abidjan – Internationally recognised president of Cote d’Ivoire Alassane Ouattara has dispatched lawyers to the International Criminal Court in Hague for the prosecution of human rights violations in the country.
The Minister of Justice, Ahoussou Kouadio, said on Sunday that the team of lawyers, comprised 10 French lawyers and some Ivorian colleagues.
` These lawyers have already gone to The Hague. They have met with the prosecutor’s office,’’ A French radio, RFI, quoted the minister as saying in an interview.
`Remember that the prosecutor of the ICC, Mr Moreno-Ocampo, has already announced the opening of a preliminary inquiry in relation to attacks on UN operation peace keepers in Côte d’Ivoire,’’ the minister added.
According to Kouadio, the District Attorney’s Office of the ICC had asked that a dossier of evidence be brought to the court.
`We have already provided a first record, but you must know the identities of those killed, places, identities of the people killed.
`There are over a thousand people killed and about three thousand cases.
“This is what the lawyers are working on and I think they will wrap up this issue in the coming days,’’ the minister said.
`This is a fight against the impunity that was widespread in Cote d’Ivoire. It defies all reasoning to pull a rocket on unarmed civilians.
`In the neighbourhoods of Abobo, Abidjan, a persistent military curfew has been there for more than two months. We cannot accept these acts of violence to go unpunished.
`So we have asked lawyers to prepare a technically good dossier for the prosecution in the Hague,’’ the minister added.
The French radio also quoted the Minister of Justice as saying that Ouattara’s lawyers would meet with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday, March 1, 2011, in Geneva.
The UN says more 315 people had been killed in Cote d’Ivoire since December 2010.
Ivorian Electoral Commission announced Ouattara as the winner of the November 2010 presidential elections held in the country, but the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo rejected the results and refused to hand over power.
The disputed elections plunged the country into three months of political and economic stalemate, with mounting international sanctions on the economy to force Gbagbo to hand over power. (NAN)
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Cote d’Ivoire: Ouattara takes human rights case to Hague