Military trial set for former Ivory Coast security chief

Abidjan (AFP) - A top security officer in the government of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo is to go on trial for atrocities in the coming weeks, the military prosecutor said Wednesday.

The closed-door trial of Jean-Noel Abehi will be held between November 21 and December 31 but the precise dates will not be made public "for security reasons", Ange Kessi told AFP.

The charges also include "desertion abroad" and "plotting", he said.

Abehi, who commanded an armoured squadron at the Agban paramilitary police barracks in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan, fled the country after a bloody post-electoral crisis from December 2010 to April 2011, when Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in elections.

The conflict claimed 3,000 lives in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and once a beacon of stability in the region.

Abehi was arrested in Ghana in February this year and extradited to Ivory Coast.

He is considered by his detractors and international humanitarian groups to be one of the main instigators of atrocities committed by Gbagbo's regime, particularly during its last throes, and faces 20 years in prison, according to Kessi.

The government of President Alassane Ouattara also suspects Abehi of involvement in attempts at destabilising the country and attacks against Ivory Coast security forces in late 2012.

In October 2012, in the first major trial stemming from the crisis, a top Gbagbo general, Brunot Dogbo Ble, was jailed for 15 years for complicity in the murder of a retired officer.

Gbagbo's supporters accuse Ouattara of meting out "victor's justice" as no one from his own camp has faced prosecution, though one pro-Ouattara militia chief is under investigation.

Gbagbo is currently being held by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he has been charged with crimes against humanity.