EU court annuls assets freeze on wife of Ivory Coast's Gbagbo
(LUXEMBOURG) - A court said Wednesday that European governments were wrong to slap an assets freeze on the second wife of ousted Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo and ordered the restrictions lifted pending appeal.
"The General Court annuls the measures freezing the funds of Nadiany Bamba," a statement from the court read, citing as its grounds that EU member states "did not provide a sufficient statement of reasons as to how Nadiany Bamba obstructs the process of peace and reconciliation in Cote d'Ivoire."
Bamba was listed as director of the Cyclone group which publishes the newspaper Le Temps and the court recalled the EU grounds as: "Obstruction of the peace and reconciliation processes through public incitement to hatred and violence and through participation in disinformation campaigns in connection with the 2010 presidential election."
After an accelerated hearing by five judges, more than normal, the court said the EU had failed to communicate to Bamba "the reasons underlying those measures in order that that person may exercise his rights of defence and his right to effective judicial review."
It "merely set out vague and general considerations" and not "the actual and specific reasons" for the listing.
"As a consequence, the General Court annuls the contested measures, to the extent that they relate to Ms Bamba."
Around 3,000 people were killed in the stand-off that followed the November 2010 presidential polls when Gbagbo refused to accept the election authority's finding that he lost, after a decade in charge of a cocoa-rich country riven by civil war tensions.
Both the Gbagbo camp and winner Alassane Ouattara's backers were accused of atrocities.