The UN-backed Special Criminal Court (SCC) in Bangui, Central African Republic, began the trial in absentia of former president François Bozizé on Tuesday for crimes against humanity committed between 2009 and 2013.
Alleged crimes committed by members of Bozizé’s security forces include murder, enforced disappearances, torture and rape.
Bozizé, aged 79, who seized power in a coup in 2003 before being overthrown ten years later by rebels, has been living in exile in Guinea-Bissau since March 2023.
But three of his former senior officers, Eugène Barret Ngaikosset, Vianney Semndiro and Firmin Junior Danboy, are all in pre-trial detention in the Central African Republic.
The case will be judged by the Special Criminal Court (SCC), a hybrid jurisdiction located in the capital Bangui and composed of Central African and foreign judges.
In February 2024, the CSP issued an international arrest warrant for the former president as part of an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed by Bozizé's presidential guard in a civilian prison and a military training center in the city of Bossembele, in the center of the country.
The judges concluded that there was "serious and consistent evidence against (Bozizé), likely to establish his criminal responsibility, in his capacity as hierarchical superior and military leader."
The ICC is tasked with investigating war crimes committed since 2003 in the Central African Republic, which has experienced civil wars and authoritarian regimes since its independence from France in 1960.
Massacres of civilians
The overthrow of Bozizé in 2013 by a coalition of predominantly Muslim rebels, the Séléka, triggered a civil war in the Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world.
Bozizé set up militias dominated by Christians and animists, known as anti-Balakas, to regain power.
Thousands of civilians were killed and both sides were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the United Nations.
At the end of 2020, Bozize took the lead of a new rebel alliance, the Coalition of Patriots for Change, which threatened the power of President Faustin-Archange Touadera before Russia deployed hundreds of paramilitaries from the Wagner private mercenary company, allowing the government to repel them.
Bozizé then went into exile, first in neighboring Chad, then in Guinea-Bissau.
Bozizé was sentenced in absentia in September 2022 to life imprisonment with hard labor for conspiracy, rebellion and murder.
