After almost two months of pre-trial detention, Pascal Affi N’Guessan has finally been released and placed under judicial control on Wednesday 30 December, an announcement made by his lawyer, Pierre Dagbo Godé. The Ivorian opponent was arrested in November 2020 following the presidential election as he tried to flee the country.
Pascal Affi N’Guessan is one of the main leaders of the opposition. He is the president of a faction of the FPI, the Ivorian Popular Front of former President Laurent Gbagbo. He was arrested on 7 November, about 100 kilometres from Abidjan, the Ivorian capital, while fleeing the justice system that had launched proceedings against him because of the unrest surrounding the presidential election on 31 October 2020.
Together with other members of the Ivorian opposition, he had proclaimed the formation of a “National Transitional Council” to replace the regime of outgoing President Alassane Dramane Ouattara, candidate for his own succession and re-elected in the first round for a third term. A re-election hotly contested by the opposition.
Along with other opposition officials, he is still being prosecuted for “conspiracy against state authority“, “insurgent movement”, “assassination” and “acts of terrorism” For having proclaimed this transitional regime and in the context of the electoral violence linked to the presidential election, violence that resulted in 85 deaths and half a thousand wounded between August and November.
