Ivory Coast: Court Sentences Presidential Candidate Guillaume Soro To 20 Years In Prison

Ivory Coast’s former rebel leader Guillaume Soro, who is also a presidential candidate in the upcoming election, was convicted in absentia on Tuesday of embezzlement and money laundering, reported Reuters. The Abidjan court sentenced him to 20 years in prison and fined $7.6m (£6.1m).  The court also ordered the confiscation of his Abidjan home.

“Guillaume Kigbafori Soro is condemned to 20 years in prison for embezzling funds and laundering public resources,” Judge Cissoko Amouroulaye said while announcing the ruling.

The court also ordered that Soro be stripped of his civic rights for five years. Soro was not present in the court as he currently lives in exile in France.

The rebel leader was accused of buying a house in Abidjan with public money while he was serving as prime minister in 2007. He denied the allegations and his lawyers boycotted the trial claiming that it as a way to prevent their client from contesting October election.

“I consider this verdict to be a non-event,” Soro said in a statement. “I maintain my presidential candidacy and ask all my supporters to remain mobilised.”

Soro has also been accused of planning a coup against Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara. The rebel leader had helped Ouattara to come to power in 2010 amid political violence that killed over 3,000 people. But, after falling out with the president, Soro launched an unsuccessful bid to become president last year.

The prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant for Soro in December last year, just before he was planning to return to Ivory Coast from Europe to begin his election campaign. Last week, the Tanzania-based African Court on Human and People’s Rights Court ordered the West African nation to suspend Soro’s arrest warrant as well as charges against more than a dozen of Soro’s allies.

He will also face another trial over the coup allegations.