(Reuters) – Charles Ble Goude, wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with a wave of violence after Ivory Coast’s 2010 elections, is in the court’s custody and is on his way to its jail in The Hague, the court said on Saturday.
The Ivory Coast government said on Thursday that it would hand over Ble Goude, a close ally of former president Laurent Gbagbo, who is already in detention in The Hague awaiting trial on similar crimes against humanity charges.
The court’s prosecutors accuse Ble Goude of helping orchestrate the wave of violence in 2010, which they say Gbagbo unleashed in order to avoid relinquishing his grip on power after losing elections.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; editing by Andrew Roche)