Three senior military officials in Cote d’Ivoire have been sentenced to life in prison for the 2002 murder of former president Robert Guei.
The sentencing ends a three-week trial in the West African nation which has been going through a reconciliation process after some more than a decade of political turmoil.
Guei was named Cote d’Ivoire’s head of state in 1999 after a coup d’etat, but lost to Laurent Gbagbo a year later. He had been out of office for nearly two years when his bullet-riddles body was discovered on a roadside in the commercial capital, Abidjan, during a secong attempted coup in 2002.
The three high-ranking soldiers close to Gbagbo who received life sentences were Dogbo Ble, commander of the Republican Guard, gendarmerie Captain Anselme Seka Yapo and another officer named as Sery Daleba.
At least five others received 10 years in prison as accessories to the killing.
Lawyers for the defendants said they would appeal the verdicts.
