A court in the Ivorian city of Abidjan on Tuesday, sentenced former National Assembly Speaker Guillaume Soro to 20 years in prison for concealment of public money and money-laundering.
He was also sentence to seven years for deprivation of civil rights, and fines of CFA4.5 billion and CFA2 billion for damages to the state over the same charges.
According to Abdoulaye Meite, one of the state lawyers involved in the case said the criminal court’s sentencing of Soro marks the beginning of a new era in the country as the corrupt are hunted down and punished wherever they may be.
Mr. Soro’s lawyers were absent from the hearing.
According to Meite, they were informed of the hearing, but they deliberately chose not to appear in court.
In a statement relating to the hearing, and sent to APA, state lawyers claimed the defendant’s team knew about it several weeks before.
This case “is only the logical outcome of the judicial process in which these lawyers actively participated until the order, which referred their client to the Criminal Court of Abidjan,” the state lawyers added.
“The hearing is taking place following a rigorous preliminary investigation phase, during which these lawyers were put in a position to develop, without any restriction or hindrance, their means of defense…and this, despite the non-appearance of the defendant” their statement said.
State lawyers claimed that as part of investigation, the defendant’s team “exploited all the appeals required by the jurisdictional acts taken against their client.”
Mr. Guillaume Soro, a former Speaker of the Ivorian National Assembly is currently in France.
AP/ls/fss/APA