Cote d'Ivoire: Outtara offers presidential pardon to former leader Gbago

President Alassane Ouattara marked Cote D'Ivoire's Independence Day on Sunday with a presidential pardon to longtime rival Laurent Gbagbo.

Gbagbo, 77, who was president between 2000 and 2011, returned to Cote d'Ivoire last June after being acquitted in 2019 by the Hague on war crimes charges for his role in a civil war sparked by his refusal to concede defeat after the 2010 election.

However, he still faced a 20-year prison sentence for a 2019 conviction linked to the robbery of funds from the Abidjan central bank during the post-election period. He has denied the charges.

"In order to further strengthen social cohesion, I have signed a decree granting a presidential pardon to Laurent Gbagbo," Ouattara said in a televised speech to the nation.

He said he had also asked for Gbagbo's accounts to be unfrozen and for the payment of the arrears of his presidential lifetime annuity.

Move
The decisions follow a meeting in July between Ouattara, Gbagbo, and former president Henri Konan Bédié.

Ouattara described the encounter as a fraternal meeting and added: "We exchanged, in a friendly atmosphere, on issues of national interest and on ways and means to consolidate peace in our country."

The troika have dominated the country's political landscape since the 1990s. Bédié, 88, was president from 1993 until he was removed in a coup in 1999. 

Gbagbo then took over until his election defeat to Ouattara in 2010.

Tensions came to a head most dramatically after the 2010 election. 

Gbagbo refused to concede defeat, leading to a brief civil war in which 3,000 people died before rebel forces aligned with Ouattara swept into the main city Abidjan.

Ouattara, 80, has presided over relative stability during his decade in power.

But dozens of people were killed in clashes that broke out around the 2020 election, when he stood for a third term that Gbagbo and Bédié said was unconstitutional.

The two former presidents have been invited to participate in Sunday's Independence Day celebrations in Yamoussoukro