The four defendants at the trial of the Grand-Bassam attack, which killed 19 people in March 2016, were sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday, December 28. The court agreed with the opinion given by the public prosecutor when rendering its verdict. Seven other defendants, absent, also received life imprisonment in absentia.
With our correspondent in Abidjan, Marine Jeannin
After five weeks of trial, the court followed the position of the public prosecutor, Richard Adou. He had asked last week, an exemplary and dissuasive sentence and demanded life imprisonment for the four defendants present in the room.
The four men present at the hearing, Hantao Ag Mohamed Cissé, Sidi Mohamed Kounta, Mohamed Cissé and Hassan Barry, were accused of being accomplices in the attack which claimed the lives of 19 people in the seaside town of Grand-Bassam . They had helped the organizers with accommodation, transport and location scouting.
The four have always denied and proclaimed their innocence since the start of the investigation. The defense had asked for an outright acquittal. In total, they were eighteen accused. Among them, seven absentees, on the run or in detention in Mali, were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment. Among them are Kounta Dalla and Ould Baba, the two brains of the operation.
All were accused without distinction of “terrorist acts, assassination, attempted assassination, concealment of criminals, illegal possession of firearms and munitions of war and complicity in the said acts”. Seven of them were acquitted.
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