A landmark trial is set to begin in the Central African Republic, where former president Francois Bozize will be tried in absentia on charges of crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
The UN-backed Special Criminal Court alleges that members of Bozize’s security forces committed murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances between 2009 and 2013 while he was in power.<\/p>\n
Bozize, now 79 and living in exile in Guinea-Bissau, is accused of bearing responsibility as commander-in-chief and military leader. Three former senior military officers linked to the case are already in custody and will also face trial.<\/p>\n
The proceedings mark a major test for the Special Criminal Court, which was created to investigate war crimes and atrocities committed during years of conflict in the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n
Bozize’s overthrow in 2013 triggered a brutal civil war that left thousands dead and saw both rebel and militia groups accused of serious human rights abuses.<\/p>\n
The former president was previously sentenced in absentia to life at forced labour in 2022 on separate charges of conspiracy, rebellion and murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A landmark trial is set to begin in the Central African Republic, where former president Francois Bozize will be tried in absentia on charges of crimes against humanity. The UN-backed Special Criminal Court alleges that members of Bozize’s security forces committed murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances between 2009 and 2013 while he was in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,33],"tags":[1134,2431],"class_list":["post-21150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-central-african-republic","tag-francois-bozize"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21152,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150\/revisions\/21152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}