Bouaké bombing trial opens without accused and pending key witnesses

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It might sound like a reunion. As for the death of an old relative who reunites friends separated by time, families who have lost sight of each other. There, the appointment was given before the Assize Court of Paris to try to settle a case that all those who enter the Victor-Hugo room have not forgotten.

On November 6, 2004, around 1:30 p.m., after two reconnaissance overflights, two Soukhoï SU-25 aircraft of the Ivorian air force released at least four rockets on the René-Descartes high school in Bouaké, a French military hold that was nevertheless perfectly identified. . Perpetuated in the midst of the offensive against the rebellion which held the north of Côte d’Ivoire, this act of war caused the death of nine soldiers from Operation Licorne and an American agricultural engineer who took refuge on the base. It subsequently led to significant French reprisals, one of the most serious outbreaks of fever in the relationship between the two countries, which still raises great questions.

On the stairs leading to the courtroom, two young retirees from the army discuss their news “Civilian life”. Once installed, a large tattooed man with biceps sculpted by the cast iron confides in a few moving words: “I never forgot what happened, but now it plunges me right back into it. “ Another survivor of this bombardment confirms that the trauma is not dissipated, polite but firm: “Me neither, I do not want to talk about it yet. ”

Leaky Witnesses

So, everyone is attending the establishment of a trial that Thierry Fusina, the president of this Assize Court, specializing in military matters, would like “Taking into account the gravity of the facts, the number of victims, practically identical to a normal trial”. Three weeks of hearings planned and a task that seems impossible. The Bouaké trial is a trial by default, without jurors, for lack of criminals to condemn, where the civil parties – the families of the nine deceased, the 39 injured and their relatives – are overcrowded and the witnesses often fleeing.

The three men who should have been in the box, Yuri Sushkin, a Belarusian pilot, Patrice Oueï and Ange-Magloire Gnanduillet, two Ivorian co-pilots, were never found and are not represented by any defense lawyer.

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