Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo plans to return home in Cote d’Ivoire on June 17 following his acquittal on charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to his party.
The General Secretary of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), Assoa Adou, announced the date of Gbagbo’s comeback in front of a crowd that had come to celebrate the former president’s 76th birthday in Abidjan.
Gbagbo was president from 2000 until his arrest in 2011.
The ICC confirmed in March that Gbagbo and his aide Charles Ble Goude were cleared over the devastating post-electoral violence that shook the country in 2010 and 2011.
More than 3,000 people were killed in months of fighting after the 2010 election when Gbagbo disputed the results of the vote won by current President Alassane Ouattara and refused to stand down.
Gbagbo was eventually forced out of power.
He became the first head of state to stand trial at the court, although he and Ble Goude always insisted they were not guilty of crimes against humanity.
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