Ivory Coast former rebel leader and prime minister Guillaume Soro was Wednesday sentenced to a life in prison for plotting to overthrow the government at the end of 2019.
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Soro, 49, was tried and sentenced in absentia. Two other defendants, his close associates Souleymane Kamagate and Affoussy Bamba, received 20-year sentences.

Two of Soro’s brothers and his former aide Alain Lobognon got 17-month jail terms for “disturbing public order”.

The court also ordered the confiscation of the assets of Soro, who lives in exile, and those of his 19 co-defendants and the dissolution of Generations and Solidary Movement for “subversive acts”.
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It also ordered them to pay one billion CFA francs (150 million euros) to the Ivorian state.

The former rebel chief’s scheduled return to the Ivory Coast in December 2019 after a six-month absence to be a candidate in the following year’s ballot had raised tensions in the West African country, where a 2010-2011 election ended in deadly violence between rival supporters.

Soro then aborted his planned return by diverting his flight to Ghana as security forces stormed his party headquarters in Abidjan.

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