00:00Former President François Bozizet may not be in the courtroom, but three of his former senior military officers were present
00:07as his landmark trial got underway in Bangui.
00:10Bozizet is being tried in abstentia by a UN-backed court over alleged crimes against humanity committed between 2009 and
00:182013, including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances.
00:25François Bozizet's regime is described as having been reduced to a solitary and paranoid exercise of power.
00:31In fact, the policy of repressing any opponents to his authority, whether supposed or real, intensified further during the final
00:39years of François Bozizet's regime.
00:43The case is being heard by the Special Criminal Court in Bangui, a UN-backed tribunal tasked with investigating war
00:51crimes in the Central African Republic, a nation scarred by decades of conflict and political instability.
00:59We expect this trial to be fair and credible and for the verdict to satisfy civil society.
01:05The rights of the victims must be respected and there must also be reparation, because it is good to hold
01:12the trial, but it's even better if there is reparation.
01:17Bozizet's 2013 overthrow sparked a brutal civil war as Christian-dominated anti-Balaka militias battled Selaka rebels.
01:26Thousands of civilians were killed, with both sides accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Comments