The figure of Ivorian civil society Pulchérie Gbalet has been in the Abidjan correctional detention center since Tuesday. Prosecuted for “agreement with the agents of a foreign power”, in this case Mali with which Côte d’Ivoire has been in diplomatic cold since the arrest of 49 Ivorian soldiers in Bamako in July. Pulchérie Gbalet faces a heavy prison sentence. His case divides within civil society and opposition political parties. Friday, the public prosecutor came to detail the facts of which he is accused.
With our correspondent in Abidjan, Youenn Gourlay
In his press release published on Friday, Richard Adou, the public prosecutor of Abidjan, considered that the facts were serious. According to him, while Pulchérie Gbalet had been released following her one-week trip to Mali, she would have embarked on a campaign of denigration of the action of the President of the Republic and the government in the management of the crisis. of the 49 soldiers arrested and tried in Mali.
According to the prosecutor, Pulchérie Gbalet denounced in a video an alleged escalation of violence against the Malian populations of Côte d’Ivoire. She would also have tried to convince the families of the soldiers to disavow the action of the government in this affair.
Prosecuted on three counts, she was arrested and brought before the Abidjan prosecutor’s office. A judicial inquiry has been opened and is ongoing. For now, Pulchérie Gbalet is patient in prison.
On Friday, she obtained the support of the PPA-CI, the party of Laurent Gbagbo, which demanded her unconditional release. The OIDH, the Ivorian Observatory for Human Rights, denounced in a long press release a decline in freedom of expression in the country.
Affi N’Guessan, the president of the FPI, for his part criticized Pulchérie Gbalet’s trip to Mali, believing that it was necessary to oppose to improve, not to put the country in difficulty.
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