Category: West Africa

From 22 to 24 June 2020, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) will hold a partially virtual hearing in the case of The Prosecutor v. Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé to hear the observations of Parties and Participants on the Prosecutor’s appeal against the acquittal decision in this case. The Chamber will make its judgment on this appeal at a later stage. The hearing will take place with the participation of the Prosecutor,…

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The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) has on 28 May 2020, decided to dismiss the request of the Defence for Mr Gbagbo for reconsideration of its judgment granting him and Mr Blé Goudé conditional release. The Appeals Chamber, however, decided to review the conditions of release. This decision does not concern the appeal against the decision acquitting Mr Gbagbo and Mr Blé Goudé. The Appeals Chamber noted that the Defence of Mr Gbagbo did…

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The world-acclaimed Nigerian prolific author Chinua Achebe wrote in his memoir There was a country that “a man who does not know where the rain began to beat him cannot say where he dried his body.” This simple, yet powerful proverb carefully summarizes the problem facing many African countries, in particular, Côte d’Ivoire (also called Ivory Coast), as the country’s court on Tuesday sentenced exiled former prime minister Guillaume Soro to 20 years in jail on charges of embezzlement and money laundering. Interestingly, the 47-…

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Who could argue that the USA and Nigeria, the “giant of Africa” speak the same language? Hardly, anyone. Right? After all, they both speak English. Yes, the American and Nigerian English. So arguably, no one doubts whether Nigeria actually understood her US counterpart, when the world super-power recently imposed visa restrictions on Nigeria and five other countries, namely, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania. The USA cited the failure of the affected countries to meet US security and information-sharing…

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The ICC Chief Prosecutor Bensouda reacts to the construction of a new courtroom in Conakry, Guinea. Her statement: I welcome the recent news on the official start of construction, within the premises of the Appeals Court of Conakry, of a new courtroom to host the trial of the events of 28 September 2009 at the Conakry stadium, which is the focus of my Office’s ongoing preliminary examination in the situation in Guinea. This is an important step forward in…

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