Ivory Coast: Gbagbo’s party spokesman, scribe arrested

Ghana on Sunday confirmed that it has arrested the spokesman of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, but said no decision has been made on whether he would be extradited.

In Abidjan, Laurent Akoun, secretary general of the party was also arrested, said party and security sources.

“Laurent Akoun was arrested by the police in the early afternoon in Adzope,” said Sylvain Miaka Oureto, president of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), referring to a town 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Abidjan. A security source confirmed the report.

“He is at the police station in Abidjan,” Oureto added.

There was no official reason for Akoun’s arrest, but an Ivorian government source said that the FPI secretary-general was recently named as being implicated in certain deadly attacks against the Ivorian army.

Several of Gbagbo’s key aides have been detained recently.

Another key player of the FPI, former minister Alphonse Douati, was arrested on August 18 and later charged with “violating state security”. The deputy secretary general of the FPI has been remanded in custody.

Gbagbo’s spokesman Justin Kone Katinan was on Friday arrested in Ghana where he fled after the collapse of Gbagbo’s regime.

Katinan was arrested under an August 2011 warrant for alleged economic crimes as budget minister during three months of crisis and conflict that followed Gbagbo’s refusal to cede power to his rival Alassane Ouattara after 2010 elections.

Justin Kone Katinan, who sought refuge in Ghana after the collapse of Gbagbo’s regime last year, served as budget minister during three months of crisis and conflict that followed Ivory Coast’s 2010 election.

“Kone Katinan Justin, a former Ivorian minister in charge of budget and spokesman of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo has been arrested by Ghanaian security and is being kept in custody here in Ghana,” a statement from the ministry of information said.

A source in Ivory Coast’s current government, led by President Alassane Ouattara, said Katinan was expected back in Abidjan this weekend to face Ivorian justice.

But Ghana’s statement said no decision had been made yet on extradition.

“Mr. Kone… holds a refugee card from the Ghana Refugee Board which is also recognised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,” the statement signed by Deputy Information Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said.

“President John Dramani Mahama in accordance with the Ghanaian Constitution has since asked the attorney general and minister of justice to study the extradition instruments and advice accordingly,” it concluded.

Mahama was sworn into office last month after the death following an illness of his predecessor John Atta Mills.

A family member, noting that Katinan’s political refugee status has just been renewed, said that he had told his wife that extradition was “out of the question”.

The statement from Accra said Katinan was arrested on Friday.

Katinan has been accused in Ivory Coast of being behind a series of bank robberies to keep Gbagbo’s camp in funds.