Former President Laurent Gbagbo’s family has challenged the continuous detention of the ex-president’s son, Michel, who has a double nationality, French and Ivorian.
Habiba Toure, the former president’s family lawyer, on Thursday said a suit was filed in a French court against the former Prime Minister, Guillaume Soro, on the “detention and torture’’ of the president’s son.
Joined in the suit, Toure said, was the head of the Ivorian Republican Force, Soumaila Bakayoko.
Toure, who featured in a news interview on TV5, said the complaint named the former Prime Minister and the head of the army because they were behind the arrest and detention of the president’s son.
She said the suit was filed in France because Michel had dual citizenship and the family preferred a country where “justice would not be compromised’’.
According to Toure, Michel was placed in “inhuman and degrading situation’’ since he was arrested, alongside his father, on April 11, 2011.
She said the former president’s son took ill and was hospitalised in Pisam, a hospital in Abidjan.
Toure said: “In Cote d’Ivoire, the Ministry of Justice has been subsumed in politics.’’
According to her, the continuous detention of Michel is “illegal and unconstitutional’’ since he was not involved in the political structure.?
The mother of the president’s son, who is French, had in April challenged the detention of her son and had dragged the Ivorian government to court. (NAN)