Overview
- The Special Criminal Court in Bangui formally opened the trial in absentia of François Bozizé on Tuesday, charging him with crimes against humanity for abuses by his security forces between 2009 and 2013.
- Prosecutors accuse members of Bozizé’s Presidential Guard of murder, enforced disappearance, torture and rape, and center the case on abuses at a prison and a military training center in Bossembélé.
- The court issued an international arrest warrant for Bozizé in February 2024, but he has lived in exile in Guinea-Bissau since March 2023 and authorities there have so far refused to extradite him.
- Three of Bozizé’s former senior officers—Eugène Barret Ngaïkosset, Vianney Semndiro and Firmin Junior Danboy—are in pre-trial detention in the Central African Republic and are expected to face the court.
- The trial tests the Special Criminal Court’s hybrid model of Central African and foreign judges to deliver accountability for violence that followed Bozizé’s 2003 coup and his 2013 ouster, and it could affect victims’ access to truth, reparations and local political tensions.