Ivory Coast youth leader appears at ICC
Ble Goude, ex-leader of The Young Patriots, charged with committing crimes against humanity in post-2010 poll violence.
A former minister and youth leader accused of involvement in murder, rapes and persecution during the violence after Ivory Coast’s disputed 2010 elections has declared his innocence as he appeared for the first time at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Charles Ble Goude appeared at a brief hearing on Thursday, the first since Ivory Coast authorities handed him over to the court in The Hague last week.
The 42-year-old was not required to enter pleas to four crimes against humanity charges, but told Judge Silvia Fernandez: “I am wrongly accused.”
Violence that erupted after the presidential election left some 3,000 people dead.
Human rights groups say Ble Goude’s youth group – the Young Patriots – played a decisive role in creating a climate of terror during the post-election violence, erecting barricades and checkpoints where an untold number of West African nationals were killed, many by being “necklaced” with tires that were then set on fire.
Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, who is also is in the court’s detention unit, faces charges of involvement in atrocities carried out by his supporters after the election that saw him ousted from office.
Until Gbagbo was forced from power in April 2011, Ble Goude held regular rallies where he used increasingly xenophobic rhetoric, which many believe incited his supporters to violence, claims that he has denied, the AP news agency reported.
He spent nearly two years in hiding before he was arrested in Ghana last year.
His lawyer, Nick Kaufmann, told the court he would seek to have Ble Goude released from jail pending further developments in the case.
The court set August 18 as the date for a hearing at which judges must decide whether prosecutors’ evidence is strong enough to merit a trial.