Ghana extradites ex-military chief to I Coast
2013-02-05 17:34
Abidjan - Ghana has arrested and extradited Major Jean-Noel
Abehi, a key figure in Ivory Coast's security services under ousted president
Laurent Gbagbo, an Ivorian security official said on Tuesday.
Abehi, together with Jean-Yves Dibopieu, who used to head a
pro-Gbagbo student union, "were arrested on Monday in Ghana," a
senior security official said.
The two men were handed over at the border on Tuesday
morning, a source close to the interior ministry said.
Former commander of the armoured squadron at the Agban
paramilitary police barracks in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan, Abehi
fled after a bloody post-electoral crisis from December 2010 to April 2011,
when Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in elections.
Abehi is considered by his critics and by international
non-governmental organisations to be one of the main instigators of atrocities
committed by Gbagbo's regime, particularly during its last throes.
Gbagbo was ousted and elected President Alassane Ouattara
took up his functions at an estimated cost of 3 000 lives.
A former head of the Student and School Federation of Ivory
Coast (FESCI), a powerful trade union that backed Gbagbo throughout his rule,
Dibopieu is close to Charles Ble Goude, ex-leader of the "Young
Patriots" who served as a militia acting for the former regime.
Ble Goude was arrested on 17 January in Ghana and extradited
to Ivory Coast the following day. Once known as "the general of the
streets" because of his ability to mobilise supporters, he has been
charged by the Ivorian courts with war crimes. He has also been under UN
sanctions since 2006.
Gbagbo is currently being held by the International Criminal
Court in The Hague, where he has been charged with crimes against humanity.
