Ble Goude returns to Ivory Coast after 11 years in exile

By TOUSSAINT N’GOTTA
Associated Press

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast’s former youth minister Charles Ble Goude has returned to his home country after more than a decade in exile. Ble Goude arrived in Abidjan on Saturday aboard a commercial flight and made no comment at the airport. Ble Goude was acquitted of charges linked to the violence that erupted after the disputed 2010 election when then President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede. Ble Goude was later arrested in 2013 in Ghana after nearly two years in hiding, and then was extradited to the International Criminal Court. After his acquittal, he sought financial compensation, saying that he was the victim of a wrongful prosecution.