2023-09-22 12:06:28
François Bozizé, former president of the Central African Republic and leader in exile of the main rebel coalition, was sentenced Thursday in absentia to forced labor for life in Bangui, notably for “conspiracy” and “rebellion”.
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Now leader in exile of the main rebel coalition, former Central African President François Bozizé was sentenced Thursday to forced labor for life in Bangui, notably for “conspiracy” and “rebellion”, according to a judgment transmitted on Friday September 22 to the AFP by the Ministry of Justice.
François Bozizé, who seized power in 2003 in a coup before being overthrown 10 years later by rebels, was sentenced to this sentence in absentia like two of his sons and twenty other co-defendants. , including important rebel leaders.
They were all also condemned for “undermining the internal security of the State” and “assassinations”, according to the judgment read by Joachim Pessire, First President of the Court of Appeal of Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, who judges in first instance for criminal cases. The judgment does not specify the crimes or the period concerned.
The Central African Republic, torn apart by civil war
François Bozizé, 76, took refuge in Chad until March 2023, when he went into exile in Guinea-Bissau. He is the coordinator of the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), the main Central African rebel coalition formed in December 2020 and which is pursuing a guerrilla war in the north of the country.
Ali Darassa, fugitive military leader of the Unit for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), the main component of the CPC, is among those sentenced.
Civil war has been tearing apart the Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world, since 2013 when a coalition of armed groups dominated by Muslims, the Séléka, overthrew François Bozizé, who then organized and armed so-called anti-balaka militias, mainly Christian and animist, in an attempt to regain power.
The conflict, extremely deadly in the first years, has considerably decreased in intensity since 2018.
With AFP
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