Former CAR president on trial in absentia over crimes against humanity

A United Nations-backed court in the Central African Republic (CAR) has begun the trial in absentia of former president Francois Bozize over crimes against humanity, including murder, enforced disappearances, torture and rape.

Bozize, who seized power in a coup in 2003 and was overthrown 10 years later by rebels, has lived in exile in Guinea-Bissau since March 2023. Three of his former senior military officers, Eugene Barret Ngaikosset, Vianney Semndiro and Firmin Junior Danboy, are all in pre-trial detention in the CAR.

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The trial is being held in the capital Bangui by a Special Criminal Court (SCC), a hybrid jurisdiction with CAR and foreign judges.

In 2024, the SCC issued an international arrest warrant for the former president as part of an investigation into crimes against humanity committed by Bozize’s Presidential Guard in a civilian prison and a military training centre in the central town of Bossembele.

The judges concluded that there was “serious and consistent evidence against Bozize, likely to incur his criminal liability, in his capacity as hierarchical superior and military leader”.

The SCC is in charge of investigating war crimes committed since 2003 in the CAR, which has experienced waves of armed conflict and hardline regimes since gaining independence from France in 1960.

Bozize’s 2013 overthrow by a coalition of mostly Muslim rebels, the Seleka, triggered civil war in the CAR, one of the poorest countries in the world. Bozize set up armed groups dominated by Christians and animists, known as Anti-balaka, to try to regain power.

Bozize himself fled to Cameroon via the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but returned to the CAR in 2019 to announce his candidacy in upcoming elections. The Constitutional Court ruled that he did not satisfy the “good morality” requirement because of his alleged crimes against humanity.

At the end of 2020, he took over 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 group, enabling the government to push the alliance back.

Bozize fled into exile, first in neighbouring Chad and later in Guinea-Bissau, which does not allow extradition.